The EFTM podcast – Why do we need Payphones? And how good is Pocket AI?

After we talked PayPhone Tag with the creator a few weeks back, this week we talk Payphones with the man in charge of Payphones at Telstra.

Do we need a new name for Payphones? Donna has bought the PocketAI – how has it gone? It’s your fault Warren!

We circle back on Google Photos with a previous caller, talk Robot Vacuums and phone security causing issues.

Be part of the show, thanks to Vodafone text or WhatsApp 0477 657 657

Full AI Generated transcript below

[00:00:03] VOICE OVER: The EFTM Podcast. Talkback Technology. Got a question about tech? Trev’s here to help. Not sure what to buy? Ask Trev. Australia’s number one talkback technology podcast.

[00:00:33] VOICE OVER: Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev. Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years, the EFTM Podcast with Trevor Long.

[00:00:44] Trevor: Real Australians with real questions every week.

[00:00:51] VOICE OVER: You can text Trev now, thanks to Vodafone, on 0477 657 657.

[00:01:10] Trevor: Thank you for listening. Thank you for downloading. Great to have your company wherever you’re listening, however you’re listening. It’s wonderful to be with you. Uh, another episode of the EFTM Podcast, the only talkback technology show where if you’ve got a question, we can help you. We can answer it for you, hopefully. That’s what I’m here for. So whether you’ve bought something new and you want to brag about it, or whether you’ve got problems with something you already own, or you’re in the market for something and you want to get some advice on what to buy and what’s out there, you can get in touch. Send me a text, 0477 657657. Thanks to Vodafone, we’ll take your texts or WhatsApp messages and we’ll get you on the show. It’s really that simple. We’re going to talk payphones again today because I’ve done some payphone tagging over the last couple of weeks, even since we spoke to, uh, the creator Alex and, um I’m going to talk to Telstra about it. We’re going to talk to Telstra about payphones here this week because, you know, they’ve got nothing to do with Payphone Tag, but what do they think of it? And just why do we still need a payphone network? And why are we calling them payphones? So many questions about payphones, don’t you think? Um, would love your feedback on, on all those things. Uh, so get in touch anytime you want. I did some travel on the weekend and tagged some payphones out in regional New South Wales, from Young to Griffith to Gungahlin and Yass. I, I claim claimed a few, had a few of them already stolen back off me too, so that’s a bit of a downer. But it is what it is, that’s the game. Um, it’s a simple life I lead and you well know it. Um, anyway, that’s, that’s the, the fun of the game. Um, would love to hear from you if you’ve got any question about, uh, technology, or you want to talk about cars, I don’t care, whatever. Uh, if it’s about electric cars, we’ll keep you for the Electric Vehicle Show each and every Monday morning. Uh, if you’ve got to take a question about electric cars, Stephen and I can help you out and we’ll talk to you on the EV Show. Those tech It’s the same number, 0477 657657. And if you’re an unsatisfied customer, just unsubscribe. And if you’re not happy with the advice you’ve been given, don’t ever, just don’t complain. As one person did this morning, it was delightful, delightful to get a complaint. And I don’t really care. I listened back to the call and I thought, well, we achieved everything we wanted. We asked extra questions. But we’re still not happy. Okay, fine. See you later. Producer Rob is able to tag a phone number as never to be part of the show again. And that’s what we’ve done. And I can tell you right now, I’m pretty sure that person was not an actual podcast listener. So let’s keep it to the core folks. The podcast listeners get priority here. That’s always the best part of the day is knowing that I’m talking to someone who actually listens to the show. So thank you very much to all of you and for sharing the wisdom of the show with anyone you know and sharing it in your networks wherever you are. So the only real way you can do that, I’ve said before, is painful. Audio is a very hard thing to share. But look, if you take a screenshot of how you’re listening on your phone or wherever it might be, you could, you could share it on your social media and you could just give a little, little cheeky link, little cheeky link to the EFGM podcast, see if anyone else listens. Hey, anyway, oh, lots of calls to come, and we’re going to talk to Telstra about payphones this week. On the EFTN podcast.

[00:04:33] VOICE OVER: Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years, the EFTN podcast with Trevor Long.

Rihanna — Consolidating photos from old phones

[00:04:40] Trevor: Great to have your company and, uh, happy to help if I can, wherever I can. 0477657657. Rihanna’s on the line. G’day, Rihanna. Hey, how you doing?

[00:04:51] Rihanna: Really good.

[00:04:51] Trevor: We spoke previously and, uh, I don’t know, we— photos was the issue. But remind me quickly, what was the issue?

[00:04:59] Rihanna: Lots of old phones, photos hanging around everywhere, trying to get them all in one spot.

[00:05:03] Trevor: Phones in the drawer. And I think I was like, if you can get them all turned on and logged in, you could probably use Google Photos. So what have you done?

[00:05:11] Rihanna: Yeah, well, the hardest part was finding them all and getting them all powered up, but I was able to sign into Google Photos as you suggested, and they all synced happily. So I now have everything in one location.

[00:05:23] Trevor: Wow.

[00:05:23] Trevor: And so were they— was there any syncing, do you think, or did you notice prior? Like, had Was it— is there double ups or do you feel like you’ve now just got this one conglomerate of everything?

[00:05:33] Rihanna: Yeah, no, I don’t think there’s any double ups. So it seems to have worked really well. So no double ups that I’ve found anyway. Just, you know, about 8,000 photos.

[00:05:41] Trevor: Yeah. How long has it been since you completed the backups of all of them?

[00:05:46] Rihanna: A few years. It was about 4 phones.

[00:05:48] Trevor: So— and sorry, when did you finish the process though with Google Photos?

[00:05:54] Rihanna: A couple of weeks ago.

[00:05:55] Trevor: Okay. So have you now looked on your phone or online at the library and has it done a good job of finding things like, yeah, you know, faces and stuff like that?

[00:06:05] Rihanna: Yes. Yes. It’s doing all of that. And now it’s sending me memories every day.

[00:06:09] Trevor: Isn’t it amazing? The facial recognition.

[00:06:12] Rihanna: It’s disturbing, to be honest.

[00:06:14] Trevor: Oh, I was with family on the weekend and I said to my uncle, I said, hang on a minute. And I— because he had an Oppo phone, I think it was, and he wasn’t using Google Photos. And I said to him, I’ll prove it to you. And I typed his his name because I’d labeled him in my Google Photos, and I was able to scroll back to photos of him when, you know, he’d be now 70, and, and when he was in his 20s at a wedding. And because I’d scanned all those photos, and he was like, how did it know that was me? And I went, it just, it can tell from your face. Facial recognition lasts through the ages. You see it with kids today, babies, as they age, that you get a bit of a crossover in there before their teens. So from the age of about 8 to 13, it’s like, hang on, is this him or her, or what? Like, who is this? And you have to give it bit more feeding of data, like saying yes and no to things. But broadly, it’s amazing how well it recognizes people.

[00:07:05] Rihanna: Yes, and if that’s what it can do on my phone, you can definitely see what it’s doing on, you know, higher-end government surveillance ones.

[00:07:12] Trevor: Exactly, that’s true. That’s very true. They would have a different level to all of us. And have you done any fun searching, like just searching for random things without names? So like, you know, blue car, red plane, or birthday party and stuff like that?

[00:07:24] Rihanna: No, no, clearly I need to start.

[00:07:25] Trevor: So that’s the other thing to understand is that it’s very intelligent at recce. So it’s, you know, it’s for every photo it goes, well, this is Trevor, um, and it’s a blue sky, or they’re at a sports stadium and stuff like that. So if I search for sports stadium, I’ll see everything from football to baseball to whatever. But if I search for baseball, it does a pretty good job of just showing me photos of baseball. Um, you’ll be blown away. Have a play around, and the next time you’ll really, really appreciate it is on a birthday. Because you’re like, hang on a minute, Uncle Trev is the worst person in the family WhatsApp group because when my nieces and nephews have birthdays, they’re like, you know, 25, 30. I’m now showing them photos when they were, you know, 5 and 6 because they’re just on my phone. They’re in a glance. I don’t need to go digging for them. They’re just there.

[00:08:13] Rihanna: Very good.

[00:08:14] Trevor: Well, I’m glad it works for you, Rihanna. Thank you so much for letting us know.

[00:08:18] Rihanna: No worries.

[00:08:19] Rihanna: Thank you.

[00:08:19] Trevor: Good on ya. Thanks heaps. There you go. It’s as simple as that. That was a fun one. I’d forgotten about that. Multiple old phones, which, you know, we should be sending to Mobile Muster. We should be recycling because there’s no point hanging around. I’m happy with you keeping one phone because it’s a backup for when you lose or break your current one, if anything happens. But with all those old ones, and people worry about data, I’m not worried about data. I’ve seen— I’ve actually physically pulled apart phones at Mobile Muster. Ain’t no one looking at your data, trust me. But if you’re worried about that, before you format your phone worthwhile doing a backup. And no point trying to back up to your computer and different things. So yeah, there you go. You install— boot them up, log them on, set them on the Wi-Fi, install Google Photos, and hey presto, you’ve got an entire library of your life’s photos on one device in one cloud location, ready to rock and roll. If only I had a dollar for every time I’d recommended Google Photos, let alone people taking it up. Hey, we should ask Claude. Uh, we should ask Claude, um, how many times have I recommended Google Photos on the EFTM podcast, right? So because of my amazing, uh, library of transcripts of every single episode of this show, Claude is now able to essentially log on to an online database, um, which has been created of every word I’ve ever said and you’ve ever said. And you’ll notice also, thank you to producer Rob, we’re now publishing the transcripts on the website every time we publish the podcast because searchability, basically, you know, you want people, um, to find this content, and podcasts are not easy to find. Here we go. Claude says 135 mentions across 45 episodes. Safe to say it’s your go-to recommendation for photo management. That’s a solid to Google Photos if they ever wanted a sponsorship. You’ve been doing it for free for years. Ah, there you go. So, uh, that’s it. It’s, uh, it’s official. Google Photos. Um, we’ve mentioned it a bit. Uh, there you go. I’m sorry, I’m texting my wife. Um, that’s very cool. I am loving the database and transcript that we have now. Um, I think it’ll help generally manage the thing. And what I’m trying to do is because, so there’s a tweaky problem we have now. Because I used to do talkback on the radio at 4BC and 6PR, a lot of the calls that we would get on this show were actually radio listeners. But I don’t do that anymore. I only do my weekly segments where I’m talking about gadgets and we don’t really promote the fact that you can get in touch with me. So there’s less people just reaching out for help. And so by putting the transcripts and doing that kind of thing, hopefully some SEO evolves over the years for people asking questions. They’ll see that I’ve answered the question and/or they can come to me and ask the same question and then we’ll get them on the show. You know, that’s all it is. It’s a little evolution of the way things works thanks to the power of AI, but not replacing the human nature of this very content. In fact, you could argue the 100% human facet of EFTM and Gadget Guy and Tech Guide is the articles we write. That’s what we were referring to there. But critically, the content on this podcast is 100% human. The transcript transcribed by AI, but who gives a rat’s, you know what I’m saying? So if you wanna be on the show, if you bought something cool, you wanna talk about it, you have your eyes on something interesting, get in touch, 0477 657 657. Thanks to Vodafone. Send me a text or a WhatsApp and we’ll get you on the show.

[00:12:16] VOICE OVER: This is the EFTM podcast.

Donna — Pocket AI real-world feedback

[00:12:18] Trevor: That’s right, you’re listening and you can be part of the show at any point. Donna is. G’day, Donna.

[00:12:24] Donna: Hey, Trevor. How you doing?

[00:12:25] Trevor: Really good. What can I do for you?

[00:12:28] Donna: I just wanted to give some and get some feedback on the Pocket AI that you had on your podcast maybe a couple of weeks ago.

[00:12:38] Trevor: Yeah, well, okay, let’s— when you say give some, have you bought one?

[00:12:42] Donna: We certainly have.

[00:12:43] Trevor: We? Okay, talk to me.

[00:12:45] Donna: Yeah. So I wear a few different hats. I run a small business in Seven Hills in Sydney with my business partner. I do some board work. I also have sort of semi-personal stuff I do. I look after an aging neighbor and a few other things, committees and things.

[00:13:04] Trevor: You sound as busy as my wife. Yes.

[00:13:06] Donna: Yeah.

[00:13:07] Trevor: Looking after people, joining committees, and then having day job things to do.

[00:13:11] Donna: That’s exactly right. So I usually carry around about 4 different colored notebooks with me, each one for the different part of my life. And they go everywhere in my handbag because I need to write notes. I’m a list person. So when I heard you talking about this with the guy that rang up, I went, oh no, this is me, I need this. So I hopped straight on to the internet that night and did some more research, listened to a lot of YouTube videos on it and things like that. Called my business partner who isn’t as crazy as I am, but close, and said, I’m going to buy these things. I said, you’re just going to have to live with it and you’re going to have to just Google this and YouTube this and I’ll talk to you Monday or whatever it was.

[00:13:54] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:13:54] Donna: So we did, and he took to it like a duck to water. He loved it straight away. I had to keep researching because I wanted to set it up right, which I feel like I have for me. So my feedback in anyone that’s thinking about buying one of these would be to absolutely do it if you sound anything like me.

[00:14:17] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:14:18] Donna: The second would be load the app onto your browser and set up folders for the different parts of your life. You can always change them later, but that’s what I did. And then I just jumped into using it trial by error, I guess. And then you just save whatever your conversation is to that particular folder and it’s really easy to go back in there and find it and, and use it.

[00:14:46] Trevor: So, so I, I was Warren, we spoke to about a month ago and I bought one while we were talking. And it was a stupid thing for me to do because I’m not like you. I don’t— I run my own business, but I don’t really talk to people.

[00:15:06] Donna: Yeah, fair enough.

[00:15:07] Trevor: Okay, like not on a podcast. I don’t have meetings. Yeah, this is like Tuesdays I do from 4 AM till 10 AM. I talk on the radio on 50 different stations, and then I talk for an hour to people like you. And then that’s it. It’s quiet in here. You know, there’s no conversations.

[00:15:24] Donna: What about your mind? Is your mind quiet?

[00:15:26] Trevor: No, so that’s where my challenge is. My mind is active, crazy active. But I think it’s active at the wrong times. So for example, in the shower in the morning, I’m always like, “Ah.” And what I do is I’m in the shower, I go, “Okay.” Like this morning I was like, breakfast, movie. I had 4 things. I was like, “Do these 4 things or you’ll be stuffed,” right? They’re my 4 things. And that’s fine, but I can’t use Pocket AI in the shower. When I’m driving, do I have ideas? Yes. When I’m sitting at my desk, do I have ideas? Should I just write them down? So help me out, understand here, because what I got from it was I was linked to my phone. And so I think you would kind of download things onto my phone. When you said use it in the browser, is it Bluetooth to the computer or is that just a cloud version of what I saw on the phone?

[00:16:12] Donna: Obviously just a cloud version, because whatever I see or change on my browser, because I sit in front of my laptop and 3 monitors most of the day and the same when I get home at nighttime. So I just have it open. But yes, it goes straight from the app on your phone to the browser or vice versa. So if I go in there and want to fix up some spelling or something on a meeting I might have had, it just automatically goes to either device, which is so great.

[00:16:39] Trevor: Is it right to say that although that you’ve got a little bit of admin to do every day, how often do you sync it?

[00:16:44] Donna: First and foremost, it constantly I just leave it attached to my phone now and it just syncs constantly.

[00:16:50] Trevor: So how often do you need to log in and go, okay, there’s, I don’t know, 6 notes that I made verbally, there’s 3 phone calls that I listened to and 2 meetings. Do you then need to go tag each one of them with the relevant thing or is it smart enough to know this was about my neighbor and this was about the board position? Does it know that stuff?

[00:17:10] Donna: No, no, I put them into the folders that I want them to go into.

[00:17:12] Trevor: Gotcha, gotcha.

[00:17:13] Donna: Yeah, so that’s easy. Um, I did make a couple of notes just for that. I mean, it has a mind map, so if you’re a visual person, it’s too easy. You just click it open and you can see. Um, you can— I’m also doing an MBA at the moment, an online MBA, so I, I was able to sync my study calendar with the Pocket. So in my MBA folder it’s— there’s a reminder of when all my webinars are or my online classes or anything that I need, or I can put in there so I can record those and then it will summarize it for me.

[00:17:51] Trevor: Yeah, right.

[00:17:51] Donna: Which, which saves me taking notes.

[00:17:54] Trevor: And does that— have you had a board meeting?

[00:17:56] Donna: Uh, no, the next committee meeting is next week, so that’s one of my— the things I’m a bit hesitant about. So if, if anybody knows of any way this works— and I’ve also looked at all the blogs and everything— there seems to be a little bit of trouble with the tagging. They call it tagging. So you can tag people’s names. Yeah. And I’m wondering how that actually works. Like, do you get into a committee meeting and you go, I’m in a committee meeting, I’m with, and then each person says their name so it automatically then tags?

[00:18:24] Trevor: Yeah. Here’s my experience with tagging, not in real time. I’ve done a couple in real time, but more like just I’ve recorded interviews with people or other things and I’ve sent it off. I used to use a website called Temi to transcribe things so that I can do articles and things. But I’ll give you another example. I was just talking I’ve had all of my podcasts transcribed. And so later today, when you log on to the EFTN website and you see this podcast, this whole conversation will be there in words. Now, will it be spelled right? I don’t know, ’cause we’re not checking that stuff. But essentially what’s happening is as soon as I publish the podcast, within the next hour, it’ll be detected and transcribed. And then what I’m doing is I’m using a slightly higher level service than just transcription to, separate out the speakers. So it’ll say speaker 1, speaker 2, speaker 3, speaker 4. And all that producer Rob is doing is going, well, producer 4, call her, speaker 4 is called Donna. And you just go Donna and it’ll say Donna throughout the whole transcript. So basically it will tag everyone in the room with their own identity, I think, but just a number. And then it’s, I don’t feel like it’s a lot of work to say, well, speaker 1 is Speaker 1 is Jim, speaker 2 is Jill, and off you go from there. You don’t have to do a whole lot of work. So I think it’ll be, I think it’ll be pretty good at it. And I would think that’s the kind of thing that will improve over time because that’s— yeah, you know, in reality, and I haven’t spoken to producer Rob about this, but in reality it’s— it knows that you’re Donna because I introduced you as well.

[00:20:04] Rihanna: That’s right.

[00:20:05] Donna: And that’s what it’s done so far for me too. I had a meeting with aged care or My Aged Care or something, and there was two different people on the line. So it was able to, in the transcript, it was able to label everybody with the correct name. But we all did speak on the phone and say our names. So that’s how we did it.

[00:20:25] Trevor: You know what, I would, I would actively— are you in charge of the notes for the meeting or the minutes or anything like that?

[00:20:32] Donna: On one committee I am. And that’s how I thought I’d give it a go.

[00:20:34] Trevor: Yes. Because then you can say, listen, guys, just so you know, I’m going to trial this. I’m still going to take notes, of course, but for the first the next couple of meetings, I’d like to trial this. So if you don’t mind, before the first time you speak, if you could just introduce yourself, your name and title.

[00:20:48] Donna: That’s what I’m thinking.

[00:20:49] Trevor: And then people are gonna go, “Oh, Donna, if that saves you time.” Because I think especially in volunteer committees, which you’re probably on a lot of, if you’re anything like my wife, it’s like, “Hang on, why is there a secretary here taking notes? That’s crazy. Focus on the meeting and just record the meeting and then dump it down later.” And I think that if you’re able to say to people, this is gonna make make the notes more comprehensive. It’s going to give us very clear action points that we won’t miss. It’s going to be amazing.

[00:21:19] Donna: And within minutes, like, I could be still sitting at the table and everyone’s packing up and they’ve already got their minutes and their to-do list in their inbox. So it’s going to be easier, I’m hoping.

[00:21:31] Trevor: Wow.

[00:21:32] Donna: The only other one big, huge, huge downside is there’s no Find My Facility. There’s no GPS or Find My Pocket. So my business partner has already lost his and it’s only been a couple of weeks.

[00:21:48] Caller: What?

[00:21:48] Donna: Yeah. So we’ve just had to order another one, which he can now link to his existing.

[00:21:54] Trevor: Yeah, I was just like, it’s really annoying. I feel like mine is sitting somewhere around me here on my desk.

[00:21:59] Donna: And how tiny are they?

[00:22:01] Trevor: I don’t know where. Just because I haven’t been using it. I was just going to say, because it MagSafes on the back of your phone, doesn’t it?

[00:22:08] Donna: Yeah, he just pushed it into his pocket and he thinks he’s dropped it or something.

[00:22:12] Trevor: I think what we need to do for him is you need to go to somewhere like laserco.com.au and buy one of those credit card-sized Find My Devices. They’re made for passports, right? Right. You know what? Yeah. Super glue the bloody thing to the back of it.

[00:22:25] Donna: I’ll have to do something because that’s—

[00:22:29] Trevor: they’re a couple hundred. I can’t remember, but it was a few hundred dollars for the pocket size.

[00:22:32] Donna: Well, yeah, but if you buy more, they’re cheaper. So when we bought the first one, Yeah. So up to 3, I think they give you a bargain, which I should have bought a spare because I know what he’s like. But anyway, I didn’t, but that’s fine. Yeah. So I think it’s great for me.

[00:22:46] Trevor: And he’s using it the same way. Does he, does he have a like, is he using it for phone calls? Like, I’m fascinated by the concept of I bought it because I thought it’d be my note-taking buddy.

[00:22:56] Donna: Yeah.

[00:22:57] Trevor: And kind of memory zone. Maybe I should get back into it and try it again. But I think of it more back in the corporate world going, oh man, imagine this in meetings, imagine this on phone calls.

[00:23:06] Donna: Well, the phone calls is the one. The phone calls is the one. In a meeting you’ve got a little bit more slack, I think. But on a phone call, you without that person in the room or people in the room, it’s so much harder.

[00:23:17] Trevor: You have to be on speakerphone. How does it work?

[00:23:19] Donna: No, no, no. I’m on speakerphone with you now because I’m just sitting at my desk. But when I took the call the other day, it was more private, so I just had it attached to the phone.

[00:23:28] Trevor: And how does it hear the other person?

[00:23:30] Donna: Through vibrations, it said when I Googled it. It, like just to do a bit of research through the vibrations in the phone.

[00:23:36] Trevor: I guess also the speaker on the phone is actually on the phone. It is actually coming out of the phone. So if you, if you had your ear close enough to someone else’s phone, you’d hear it. So that’s essentially what it’s doing.

[00:23:45] Donna: Yeah, but Darren uses it more. We’ve got a medium-sized mechanical workshop, so he’s been writing SOPs on it and workflow and just notes about different things in the workshop and things like that. So he’s using it totally differently to I am, but but he’s just loving it.

[00:24:05] Rihanna: So yeah.

[00:24:05] Trevor: Wow.

[00:24:06] Donna: Excellent.

[00:24:07] Trevor: That is really, really cool. I’m super excited about that.

[00:24:09] Donna: Thanks, Warren.

[00:24:10] Trevor: Yeah, good on you, Warren. You’ve created a beast. That’s amazing.

[00:24:14] Rihanna: Well done.

[00:24:15] Trevor: All right, Donna, thank you so much for the feedback. That is awesome stuff. Really well done. And I hope it makes your life so much more productive and hopefully time-saving for you.

[00:24:22] Donna: Thanks. Enjoy your show and magazine.

[00:24:24] Trevor: Oh, thank you so much, Donna.

[00:24:26] Donna: Cheers.

[00:24:27] Trevor: No worries at all. Fantastic stuff. And that’s great feedback from a caller inspired gadget, the Pocket AI.

[00:24:33] VOICE OVER: Join the conversation Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

Pete Manwaring (Telstra) — Why payphones still matter

[00:24:40] Trevor: Great to have your company and lovely to be with you. If you’ve got a tech question or you want to talk about anything tech in your world, love to have a chinwag about it. You can send me a text 0477 657657 anytime or WhatsApp and we’ll, we’ll get you on the show. Now a few weeks ago, you might remember me talking with Alex, a guy who created a game online called Payphone Tag. But it’s offline because I’ve been playing it for those 2 weeks and more, and I’ve rarely looked at my phone because you don’t need a phone to play it, you just need to find a payphone. So having had that conversation about the actual game and the premise of how it came about, I thought, well, let’s go one step further and talk to Telstra about the actual payphones. And the man that, well, let’s just say he’s in charge of payphones for Telstra is Pete Manwaring, and he joins me on the line. G’day Pete, how you doing?

[00:25:29] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): G’day Trev, I’m well, thank you.

[00:25:31] Trevor: I’m disappointed in you, I’ve got to say.

[00:25:33] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Oh yeah, hit me up.

[00:25:35] Trevor: I know where you live, which sounds strange, but I know you live in a country town and I’ve just opened up the Payphone Tag map and I don’t— you haven’t even bothered to claim the local payphone, mate. What’s going on? You’re in charge of payphones. You know about Payphone Tag. Come on, mate.

[00:25:50] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Well, I’m ethically torn.

[00:25:51] Trevor: Let’s put it that way.

[00:25:53] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): It’s like, you know how it works. You remember the old competitions? It’s like, you know, they had a competition and staff and family can’t play the game. Well, that’s what I feel like. It would be unfair. It’d be unfair, especially let’s say one of our technicians wanted to play the game. He’d win easily.

[00:26:14] Trevor: That’s a good point actually, because—

[00:26:15] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah.

[00:26:16] Trevor: And I might get to that in a minute because I have a lot of questions about how the network is maintained and if and why. But what did you, how did you first find out about this game as the man who basically, if anyone at Telstra has a question about what they’re doing with payphones and what’s happening with them, they come to you. So how did this come across your desk?

[00:26:35] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah, it— well, I mean, payphones are surprisingly loved across the business. You know, they’ve been around a long time. It’s, you know, so people send me stuff all the time. So it came across my desk probably, you know, within about 4 days of it kicking off.

[00:26:54] Trevor: Right.

[00:26:56] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): And, and, you know, we’re often a bit nervous when things like this happen.

[00:27:00] Trevor: Of course.

[00:27:02] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): You know, there’s been some bad things, but this one is outstanding. What a great idea.

[00:27:08] Trevor: It’s just a really simple— like, I’ll be honest with you, I had the same, because I saw a TikTok on it and then I went and did it and I thought, this is fun. And then I thought, I’ll make a video of my own. And then I thought, ooh, am I encouraging something strange? Am I encouraging something that I shouldn’t? And I thought about the potential negatives of it, like, because I look at it from a parent’s perspective. Like, I talked to my 14-year-old, said, mate, we should go out on the weekend and claim some payphones. And he said, “How do you do it?” And I talked him through it. And see, for me, I waited up and I went, “Well, I’m not gonna send my 14-year-old out randomly claiming payphones at night, no.” But if you’re on the train with your mates to the city, jump out at a train station, claim a payphone, get back on the train or wait for the next one, whatever it might be. If you are like Mike, we live in Sydney and my young son and his mates, they’ll just go to the city to take photos. They love photography. Geography. While you’re walking around, claim a payphone. And I felt like the best thing about this game, and I mentioned this to the founder, Alex, was it exposes people to firstly the location of payphones, which is a really good thing to know. And especially if you talk to your kids about it, because then you can say to kids, those phones are free. And if you ever need me, if you ever lose your phone, have your phone stolen, get mugged, whatever it might be, your battery’s flat, That phone is your connection to me. And that’s a great message.

[00:28:29] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): 100%. And, you know, it’s not only in— so what happens over time, these payphones have been there for a long time. If you— if we don’t do these games or these Santa activations or whatever, they become invisible.

[00:28:46] Caller: Yes.

[00:28:46] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): So if you ask 10 people where their nearest payphone is, they wouldn’t have a clue. When they, even with the big bright orange domes or pink domes on top. And so by continuing to kind of push these kind of activations or support them or somebody else like Max comes up with some brilliant idea, it brings them front of mind. And to your point exactly, especially for kids, which we support with the Santa campaign, which has been fantastic. We get 700,000 calls from kids to our Santa. That teaches these kids kids how to use the payphones. And so when they need it, the challenge for people like, I’m guessing you, but definitely me, is to remember phone numbers.

[00:29:33] Trevor: Numbers, yes. I bet you, you’re like me, you’ll remember your childhood number, 410-456.

[00:29:39] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): I do remember that.

[00:29:41] Trevor: Exactly. I was of an era, I was talking about this at dinner the other night, maybe it was just our family or maybe it was our community, but we would answer the phone with our number.

[00:29:48] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Number.

[00:29:49] Trevor: Like, you’d pick up the phone and go, “410427.” I don’t know why, like, to check that you hadn’t rung the wrong number or not to not give away your name. But yeah, phones have changed over the years. Yeah, kids now, like, I don’t know my kids’ numbers. I don’t, but I know that they know mine, and that’s probably more important to me that they know how to contact me. And, and I like the idea of educating that, that that orange or pink thing down the street is a way to contact me. It really matters that people can stay connected. And then there’s the other part of it, which we can talk about in a bit as well, which is there’s people who are displaced. We have, I think, awareness campaigns regularly about missing persons and stuff and encouraging people. And it sounds ridiculous, but even if you wanna stay missing, to use a payphone to make a free call to let someone know that you’re okay. And those simple little things are a big part of society.

[00:30:48] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): It’s why we do what we do. Like, you know, we throw around a lot this term, you know, our reason for being in terms of the Payphone is to support the vulnerable and the disadvantaged. And I think that covers a wide range of people. You know, you’re vulnerable if your son lost his phone or you’re vulnerable if you’re living rough. All of those elements. And what we’ve seen is the payphone usage was, was like really declining massively when we were charging 50 cents a call, which, you know, it wasn’t a lot of money back in 2019 or 2020, but still it made a difference to those people who are vulnerable or disadvantaged. And so they weren’t using it, they weren’t accessing the services, they weren’t calling home. So what we’ve seen, we were down to around 6 million calls for the year, which is still a lot of calls, but 6 million calls, and we’re up to 25 million a year now. So just by making it free. Now, sure, some of that is kids, you know, they’ve learned how to use the payphone and they call their grandfather and say hi, or they call a fake number and do a prank. I mean, who cares?

[00:32:03] Trevor: Who cares? Bring it on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:32:06] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): And some of it is, you know, this wonderful game Payphone Tag, which, you know, we’re sitting close to 60,000 calls since it’s kicked off. They’re super happy.

[00:32:18] Trevor: The stats on the real-time stats that Payphone Tag published say that time on calls, so time spent listening to the— ’cause when you ring, and I mean, I explained this the other day, but to people that weren’t listening that time, you ring and it says agent login, you put in your code, and then you can listen to where you’re at on the leaderboard. But there’s also this weird party line thing you can join and talk to other people playing the game. 277 hours spent on calls. And you know, we’re talking about a lot of time people picking up a phone. You know, as you said, 60,000, 70,000 calls have been made just capturing payphones. And it’s a funny thing, but— and it’s not serious in any way. There’s a fun leaderboard and all that kind of stuff. But there’s also a real— like, they sent out a notification the other day saying that 80% of all payphones had now been captured, and it’s now at 84.3%. So 11,607 of your 13,766 payphones have been interacted with as a result of this game.

[00:33:18] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah, it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. And it’s play for play’s sake, which I think, you know, I think society needs a bit more of that.

[00:33:26] Trevor: How do you, how do you respond? Have you, uh, like, they have you have a— on the game there’s a way you can report an issue with a phone, for example. So I was in Griffith on the weekend and I looked at it and I went, oh, no one’s claimed a single phone here, I’m out. I said to my wife, listen, I’m just popping out for 30 minutes. She said, where are you going? I said, I’m going to claim some payphones. She said, I don’t even want to know. Anyway, I went to my old high school in Griffith and I found a payphone across the road and the wires were broken. I could see that it had been opened. But here’s how nerdy I am. I also knew that it was— I could hear but I couldn’t speak, so I didn’t care because I knew the payphone would still work. And so I could still dial the number, and even though I couldn’t hear the tag, I just waited the appropriate amount of time before putting in my PIN code, and then I claimed the thing. But I reported it then as broken. And I think that’s an interesting, interesting thing because you’ve got essentially, you’ve got an active force of, you know, 1,000-odd people who are out there finding issues with the network too. So are you able to use that to respond to—

[00:34:31] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah, 100%. I encourage that. So obviously there’s some smarts inside the payphone which tell us a number of faults when it’s not working.

[00:34:44] Trevor: Right.

[00:34:45] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): But there’s a couple of faults, particularly the one you just mentioned where it’s damaged and we can’t tell remotely if it’s faulty. So yeah, 100% with support. People either calling in on our payphone fault number or as you said, maybe through the game. But as far as I know, I don’t think we’ve got any reports from Vaxx around that. So I might have to follow that up.

[00:35:09] Trevor: Yeah, worthwhile for sure. Which takes me to the question around payphones generally. Now every payphone has a phone number and I’ve noticed most of them are mobile numbers, but some of them are still like landline numbers. So is there still different types of payphones, some that you’ve just got operating as essentially is mobiles and others that are still connected to a landline network?

[00:35:31] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah, 100%. We have out of our fleet of, you know, just shy of 14,000, we’ve now migrated about 8,000 to using the 4G backhaul or Starlink backhaul in remote areas where there’s no 4G. And so that’s an ongoing program at work where we’re slowly migrating them off copper more copper onto, which obviously with the copper shutdown, we have to do that. But the benefit of that is like, we’re about to kick off a program to upgrade about 1,500 of our Wi-Fi payphones, which are running on ADSL. Now, I’m sure you especially would understand that it’s a pretty poor, quality service, but we’re about to invest heavily and put 4G back all and new Wi-Fi on those sites. So they’ll get, you know, much, much better speeds. But I guess to that point, the Wi-Fi on the payphones is never meant to be for people like you and I. It truly is designed for the vulnerable and the disadvantaged. So, you know, it’s about them accessing those government services which are increasingly being shifted onto digital-only, you know, access. And so giving them those opportunities is pretty important. Pretty key.

[00:36:51] Trevor: And is that this, I mean, it’s not just the spirit of the network, but it’s why the network exists as well. Because I know, again, you don’t need to go into the detail ’cause I’m not that deep in it myself. But essentially there’s a government guarantee to these things as well. Well, the government needs this network out there. They need them to exist for that purpose. So that’s how you’re able to continue the network. Otherwise it would be hard to justify in some ways. Wouldn’t it?

[00:37:17] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Oh, it’s hard to justify. I mean, the government partly, you know, significantly pays for, you know, the network, not all of it, but, you know, it’s a good contribution. And that’s on the voice network only. They don’t contribute at all to the Wi-Fi component.

[00:37:33] Trevor: Right.

[00:37:34] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Only to the voice component. And that runs through till 2032. So there’s still plenty plenty of time left on that deal with the government and also plenty of time left for us to convince our corporate stakeholders that we should be investing in these. And we are. I mean, to Telstra’s credit, they throw a lot of additional money into a product that generates zero revenue. So in a corporate world, that’s pretty unheard of.

[00:38:05] Trevor: It is unheard of. And especially, I mean, I look at— a lot of people used to complain to me about the way the NBN works and everything. I say, listen, you gotta understand the government kinda needed to do that because the corporate world was never going to invest in a widespread broadband network like this at that pace. And if you now look at a map of the payphone network and you go, my God, they are in the most remote places. There’s a guy on, or a guy or girl on Payphone Tag with the username CovertMoth who own a triangle from Oodnadatta down to the Woomera Defence Zone. Which is the largest possible triangle I think you could even have. And like, the likelihood of someone else in the game driving there is pretty rare, but it points out just how remote these, these devices are. And I think that’s a really critical part of it too. It’s, it’s anywhere, which, you know, it could be a breakdown, could be someone that’s, you know, out of fuel. There’s a lot of reasons why these still need to exist in those remote areas. Too.

[00:39:05] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Oh yeah, like there’s, um, there’s some sites we’re working on currently up, up, um, near Carnarvon, and, uh, they just had a cyclone go through. But, but there’s, there’s a payphone there which does around 10,000 calls per year. One phone in the middle of, in the middle of nowhere. Um, and, and, you know, so there’s still, yeah, like, like even we with people running around with Starlinks in their vehicles and 4G coverage, there’s still a real need for it.

[00:39:39] Trevor: Something— When you look at the map, the other thing that’s really interesting, that it feels like it’s real-time data. You’ve obviously probably got some really cool real-time spreadsheet or website you can look at to see things happening on the network. But for us mere mortals, the Payphone Tag website is essentially a real-time website for us of the payphone network. And it looks like when I said earlier, 84% of the phones have been captured. You think, oh, there’s not much more to go, that’s pretty good. But then you realize that 2,000 payphones left to be found or tagged are in the most remote areas. And while, you know, there’s lots of places in busy bustling areas, it looks like on the map, oh, we just go for a quick drive and we’ll claim the Nullarbor. Well, that’s a pretty epic journey.

[00:40:21] VOICE OVER: Yeah.

[00:40:22] Trevor: You know, it’s pretty unlikely that your wife’s gonna let you stop along the Nullarbor and claim claim every payphone as well, just from my experience of driving with my wife, who was not a fan of me randomly stopping to tag payphones.

[00:40:35] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I’ve done it myself, driving around, stopping at every one, doing a quick audit of it, calling in any faults, you know, with the—

[00:40:45] Trevor: You’re like, it’s my job, it’s what I need to do.

[00:40:48] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:40:49] Trevor: Well, look, and so—

[00:40:50] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): But not all remote areas, of course.

[00:40:52] Trevor: No.

[00:40:52] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Because Molong is still available and here and ready to tag. If anybody comes, I’m happy to, you know, shout them a coffee for the first person. Tags, moolong.

[00:41:00] Trevor: Do you think we need a new name? ‘Cause payphones are not payphones. Do you debate that regularly internally?

[00:41:07] Caller: Yes.

[00:41:07] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Oh my God, yes. I mean, yes. There’s a bit of tension within, you know, across the business on whether we can or we can’t because it’s a legislated product, which is still called payphone. But at the very least, you know— Public phone. We could have our own. Yeah, I think public phone is—

[00:41:30] Trevor: You can’t really call them pub phones either, so that’s problematic. I’m feeling a promotional corporate competition coming on, you know, the rename the payphones, rename the payphones, something like that. You know the team at Telstra, they’ve got eyes and ears for this. If it’s the Santa thing and the Salvos, and there’s a bunch of reasons we promote them, maybe, just maybe, this is the next step for you, mate. It’s a fascinating job you have, and I love the fact that, uh, you’ve been able to have a bit of public attention on, on your work through a simple little fun screen-free game like Payphone Tag, mate. And I, I respect the fact that you’re not engaging in the game.

[00:42:11] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Thank you. Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s just ethics, mate.

[00:42:14] Trevor: It’s just ethics, you know.

[00:42:17] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah, if, and if Matt is listening, I like, I sincerely thank him. I think it’s a brilliant game, and congratulations to him.

[00:42:23] Trevor: Good stuff, mate. I appreciate the chat.

[00:42:26] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): All right, see you later. Say bye. Bye, Trev.

[00:42:31] VOICE OVER: You’re listening to the EFTM podcast. You can text Trev now thanks to Vodafone on 0477 657 657.

Dave — Robot vacuum recommendation

[00:42:46] Trevor: Great to have your company, taking your calls. Get in touch. Dave’s on the line. G’day, Dave.

[00:42:50] Dave: Hey, Trev, how are you doing?

[00:42:51] Trevor: Mate, really good, buddy. You had a question in the man cave Hey, Cave, what can I do for you?

[00:42:55] Dave: You’re looking at just moved into a single-story house, looking at a robot vacuum cleaner and just knowing where to start without spending the earth.

[00:43:06] Trevor: So sorry, start again. It’s a single-story, did you say?

[00:43:09] Donna: Yeah.

[00:43:09] Trevor: And hard floors, carpets, what do we got?

[00:43:12] Dave: Hard floors throughout.

[00:43:13] Trevor: Oh, throughout. Okay. Well, it’s a funny one because I’ve tested so many over the years that I’m confident they’re amazing. There’s a weird thing that happened in our house, and I think you’ve probably heard me talk about my wife plenty of times, who isn’t really a fan of most of the things that I bring home. And I never really set a robot vacuum to go out like every night because we had this thing where we would put all the chairs up and have it cleaned properly, like basically once a week. I’d just go, let’s put all the chairs up while we go to baseball and have it clean. But she said to me last time I set a vacuum up, she said, why do we have to put all the chairs up? I said, look, just because otherwise we could just send it out every day and go around the chairs. And she said, why don’t we just do that? I went, well, I’m happy to do that as long as you leave room for it to come out, because often where it sits is actually— it’s near her desk and there’s the race sim and all these things get in the way. I said, we’ve got to go to bed knowing that that’s— that, that runway is clear to get out. Anyway, so we did that, and this thing’s been going out every single night. And she said to a random person— so not even just feedback to me, but she was talking to a random person about robot vacuum— she goes, it’s absolutely no noticeable how good the floor feels now that we’ve been using it literally every, every day or every 2 days. So the thing— your most important thing is, is the mopping feature, because you need to worry less about suction power and all those things and more about just simply having a bloody good mop. Because any vacuum, as long as you use it at least every second day, any, any vacuum is going to pick up the basic things that are, that are left out. I will say you’ve still got to be careful of medium-sized things like a bread clip or, you know, hair clips. What was the funny thing? I heard this noise, it was going around making this horrible noise. I thought, what is that? And I picked it up and there was a pencil that had been picked up but not sucked up. So it was just looping around on the bloody thing. So that was, you know, you got to keep your eye out still for the basics. But yeah, have you got a budget in mind?

[00:45:11] Dave: Probably under $1,000.

[00:45:13] Trevor: Under $1,000. So you’re probably not going to get under $1,000, you’re not going to get the rolling mopper. So your more traditional kind of full-on rolling mop. What you’ll get is the pad mop. So underneath on the bottom are pads that wash the floor. But I was looking at say Roborock, they have one called the Qrevo. I don’t know how to say it. Q-R-E-V-O Max 5, right? Max V. What the— what I like about it is it has spinning pads, and the spinning pads is what you want. You definitely want one where the pads on the bottom of it spin around in circles, because otherwise it’s just dragging them around. Like, let’s be honest, the dragging— drag— you’re just dragging a, a cloth along the floor. Okay, it’s been re-wet every time, you know, but it doesn’t really make a difference, you know. So kind of in the end, you better off with the rotating mop heads. So if you can find one, um, man, I’m online right now at Roborock. They got what used to be a $2,000 one for $1,000 on special right now. It’s called the Quervo Edge C, and it has not just the spinning pad but the one that kicks out. So it kicks out on an angle so that it gets closer to the edge. Plus it’s got the auto empty station, so it’s refilling itself and doing all that stuff. Dude, that’s really good value. Let’s see. Edge C. Qwerbo. Q-R-E-V-O. Qwerbo Edge C is seemingly on special now. Oh damn, I’ve just clicked another page. I’m going to check whether they’re also selling it.

[00:46:56] Dave: The good guys, the good guys got it for $950.

[00:47:00] Trevor: JB’s got it cheap. Yeah. Also, what about this for a tip? The good guys. This, uh, on any single page— well, not any page, but certainly on their TVs. And I’ve just noticed it’s on here as well. If you look under the price, there’s a thing that says price check, pay less with PriceBeat. You click that and you’re also going to get more money off, right? Because they’ve found a cheaper price. You’re going to get it for $939.

[00:47:26] Dave: Cool. Yeah, that works.

[00:47:28] Trevor: That applies to TVs as well. It’s insane. So basically what, what Good Guys is doing is they’re scanning the market every hour or 5 or whatever. They’re updating their data database and they’re going, you know what, it’s $1,000 cheaper somewhere else, but let’s not change our price. Let’s just give it to someone who’s willing to press this one extra button. Yeah.

[00:47:47] Dave: Yeah.

[00:47:48] Trevor: So they do it.

[00:47:49] Dave: They do it in store as well. I did it. I bought a microwave just the other day and he said, look, I said, what’s the difference between these two? It’s other than the price. He said nothing. I said, well, he said, you can have that for I think it was about $50 less. I said, sure.

[00:48:08] Trevor: Okay, thank you. No, exactly.

[00:48:11] Dave: I wasn’t going to say no.

[00:48:12] Trevor: Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s a— I thought it was a really cool feature of the Good Guys website that just means that you absolutely know that, you know, you don’t— it’s a smart one because it’s their way of saying, don’t look anywhere else, we’ve got you covered. And now your gut, for anything over $1,000, you got to go, I’m going to check. Okay, I’m just going to check that I can’t find it anywhere else. But wildly, they are doing the checking for you. So really, really cool. Fantastic. Obviously, just quickly, the other thing to do is compare a couple other brands. So you might compare Dreame and Ecovacs and go just check what other— right, spinning mop with the kick out, make sure it’s got the kick out because that’s the edge portion of this Qwerbo Edge C. And, uh, mate, just go shop on value there, see what price you can get.

[00:48:53] Dave: Fantastic, thank you very much, mate.

[00:48:55] Trevor: All right, mate, anytime as always. Thank you, mate, appreciate it. Cheers, Dave. Thank you. Um, yeah, so it’s a massive market, but what about that really cool price check feature there on The Good Guys. Got to give them credit for that. Um, it came up, I was talking to someone, um, in the TV industry— hi, Justine— uh, about, uh, the, the EFTM, you know, TV Finder website thing. And, um, she said that she’d checked The Good Guys price check and that had, that had matched what I had as my best price. And I’m like, oh, Wow. And I’ll say this, I’ve been talking to the guy from JBuddy.com about how we can incorporate and work together because I don’t know that I’ve got the time or inclination to continue because at the moment it’s still manual process, but I’m gonna set aside some time to try and make it automated. But you know, he’s got some really cool stuff going on and I’m trying to work out whether or not there’s data we can share or whether we can work together on that. I don’t know, but I’m still absolutely in love with the TV Finder, with the Which TV to Buy TV search on eftm.com if you’re in the market for a TV. We’ve now reviewed the Hisense UR9 Mini RGB Mini LED, so you can now find that review linked on, on the EFTM TV Finder as well. Lots of great things going on in the world right now, folks.

[00:50:23] VOICE OVER: Be part of the show. Thanks to Vodafone, you can text 0477 657 657.

Bruce — Norton VPN blocking dashcam app

[00:50:32] Trevor: Last call for the week, Bruce is on the line. G’day, Bruce.

[00:50:35] Bruce: Hi, Trevor, how you going?

[00:50:36] Trevor: Hey, what can I do for you? Hey, got an issue.

[00:50:40] Bruce: I’ve downloaded Norton 360 onto my phone and I’ve got a BlackVue 800 Gold dash cam and I can’t access the Oh, so you would normally open up the app and locally view the camera, download files, replay things?

[00:50:59] Trevor: Yeah. And, and you’ve— you know it’s the Norton because that’s the most recent thing you did? It is, yeah. Is— have you enabled the VPN?

[00:51:09] Dave: Yes.

[00:51:10] Trevor: Yeah, that’s the problem, I would think. Yeah, that would be the problem. Why, why do you think you want or need a VPN on you phone?

[00:51:18] Bruce: Um, it sort of come with the, with the Norton thing, mate.

[00:51:22] Trevor: I’m a big fan of you having security software. Absolutely. Big, big supporter. Um, but the VPN is the least most important one of them all.

[00:51:30] Bruce: So, okay, yep.

[00:51:31] Trevor: If, if, as long as the Norton is also doing other things like, I don’t know, checking your emails or scanning your emails and also link prevention. What I want security on your phone for is so that you don’t press on a link that you shouldn’t in a text message, an email, or wherever else. So that would be a separate part of it. So I would go into the settings and check if you can disable it within Norton, the VPN. Otherwise, is it an iPhone?

[00:51:56] Bruce: Yeah, it is an iPhone. Yeah.

[00:51:57] Trevor: Otherwise, in the settings, just search for VPN and you’ll be able to just click a box and turn it off. Now, the frustrating thing will be— okay, yeah, I’ve seen that Norton will keep saying to you, you’re not fully protected. Just, you just need to remember you’re as fully protected as you need to be. But yeah, if you go and turn the— firstly, turn the VPN off and check that the BlackVue works. That’s— let’s make sure that that’s actually the problem. But yeah, it should be as simple as that. And I know people love VPNs and they spruik them and they sell them. And but mate, I’ve rarely used a VPN in my life.

[00:52:28] Bruce: Okay, no drama. So yeah, I can— I’ll definitely do that.

[00:52:31] Trevor: You’ll be back on and running. And what car is the Blackview in, mate? What sort of car?

[00:52:38] Bruce: Triton. Triton. What is it?

[00:52:42] Trevor: Do you catch a lot of cool stuff or have you had issues with crashes or are you just catching cool random stuff that’s happening around just random stuff.

[00:52:50] Bruce: I just wanted to make sure if I did have an accident, I was right.

[00:52:52] Trevor: Yeah, 100%. Well, mate, disable the VPN, log into the app, and I think you’ll be sorted.

[00:52:58] Bruce: Yeah, no worries. Yeah, because when I got the ute, it was supposed to come with a dashcam that it got installed later, and yeah, it didn’t get a very good handover.

[00:53:05] Trevor: That’s all. Ah, bugger.

[00:53:06] Bruce: On the dashcam. That’s it.

[00:53:08] Trevor: Yeah, right. Well, you got it, mate. It’s a good dashcam.

[00:53:10] Pete Manwaring (Telstra): Yeah, yeah.

[00:53:11] Bruce: No, I was very happy with it.

[00:53:12] Trevor: Yeah, well done. That’s a nice one. All right, enjoy. Joy.

[00:53:16] Bruce: No worries, I’ll give that a go and I’ll get out of this meeting.

[00:53:18] Trevor: Thanks, mate. Good on you.

[00:53:19] Bruce: Thanks, Trev.

[00:53:20] Trevor: See you, buddy. Cheers. Um, Bruce was in a meeting. I said, mate, can you go to chat? He said, yep, quickly. I’m like, okay, we can do that. We get it done quickly. See, we can nail your problems in no time at all. And look, I, I hear you saying, I strongly support a VPN. Good on you, I’m cool with that. But most of the time when I talk to people about why they’re using or installing a VPN at home or on their mobile, wherever it is, it’s because they’ve heard an mad for it, and they don’t know why they need it. Now, if you said to me that I like Spanish TV and I want to put my phone in Spain and stream illegally the Spanish content, do your best, whatever. If you said to me I do my banking that way, I say don’t do it on a public— don’t do it in a public cafe. Just avoid using it in those places. But otherwise, meh, I’m not too stressed. I know it’s not the top-end security advice people think they’re going to get, but in the end It’s most of the time somewhat unnecessary.

[00:54:19] VOICE OVER: You’re listening to the EFTM podcast. Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

[00:54:32] Trevor: Thank you so much for listening this week. Once again, fun talking payphones and, uh, If you’re in Griffith, please don’t own my payphones, okay? I’ve taken— spent a lot of time trying to own those payphones. If you live in anywhere regional, there’s a huge chance the payphones around you are not tagged. So jump onto payfontag.com. I noticed they expanded the cells, which is like groups or teams, and, uh, we now have more members. I don’t know, I don’t know how that happened, but whoever Nano Kesh is, hello and welcome. Welcome, great to have your company. Got 32 phones, fantastic, love it. Gotta find out where they are. I might be able to do that somehow here. I’ll do it after the show. Um, thanks for listening, folks, and, uh, we’ll do it all again, uh, next week right here.

[00:55:22] VOICE OVER: Tech, cars, lifestyle— this is the EFTM Podcast with Trevor Long.