The EFTM podcast – A Song for Trevor? Have a listen to this caller’s story!

Podcast: EFTM

Episode: A Song for Trevor? Have a listen to this caller’s story!

Date: 2 June 2026

Host: Trevor Long

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[00:01:09] Trevor: G’day, g’day, great to have your company. Happy June, folks. We are 5/12 of the way through the year. I mean, can you believe that in like less than 30 days we’ll be halfway through the year? That is insane to me. I just— it’s going to hit me every week, I’ll tell you right now. It’s, it’s, it’s just weird. But anyway, it is what it is. I am currently in London, but, uh, we’re still here pumping out the shows for for you. As I said, next week I’ll be at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino for the Worldwide Developers Conference. Looking forward to that. And this week there’ll be news from Amazon, so keep your eyes on eftm.com. I’m literally just right now in the backend of the website adding some details to the Ask Trev page because I had this thought that you need to tell people to come to me. So if you’re on Facebook, let’s be honest, that’s where a lot of the, you know, how do I do this stuff happens. You need to tell people to, well, why don’t you just ask Trev? So what I’ve done is it worked, has it worked? Yes, it has. I’ve added a banner that has my face and the big thing, got a tech question, ask Trev. And so essentially, if you just go to eftm.com and click Ask Trev yourself and then copy that URL, that website address, go back and paste that in the comments of your mate’s tech question. Get them to ask me. That’s what I’m here for, right, is to help take your questions. Um, and so yeah, don’t be afraid to tell people to get in touch. You can advocate for me. See, the thing is, as we continue 16+ years into doing this talkback stuff here on the podcast, um, you, dear listener, you’re well aware of how everything works. You don’t have a question because you’re savvy. You’ve been listening, you’ve learned from me. Hopefully over the years. That said, there is no such thing as a dumb question. So if you have a question you think is dumb, ask it, because you’ll be blown away by how absolutely logical it is and how many other people might be asking just the same thing and will benefit from the same question. And that to me is the fun part of this, is other people benefiting from your question. So give it a crack, folks. If you paste the Ask Trev URL into Facebook, you’re basically sharing a picture of me. I might— you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to publicly put it out there now. I’m going to put it on my Facebook page now so that people know they can ask that question. Simple as that. Um, because that way we, we, we get your calls. Otherwise, what are we gonna do on this show? We do have a lot coming up on the show though. A lot of companies want to be on the show, so we’ve got a lot of interviews coming up over the couple of months ahead. We’re going to talk to Samsung, HP, um, the Australian— hmm, ACAN, Communications Consumer Action Network, I think it stands for— because I want to talk about the spectrum pricing I want to talk to Hisense about their XR10 projector, which has just been delivered to my office. There’s so much I want to talk about, so we will talk to people. And if you’re someone you want me to talk to, then let me know. See, that’s— it’s a two-way relationship here, this thing. You can ask me and I can benefit from that. Producer Rob can get ideas from you. If there’s some— something you think we should cover, just text it through. Producer Rob sees all the texts. He can write it down. He might even use his initiative and come up with an interview on it, but he’s very busy because he’s a granddad. Producer Rob’s a granddad. Uh, he’s doting, he’s doting over a, uh, a beautiful new baby, which is lovely. So, uh, he’s not 100% focused on his computer, which is absolutely as it should be. Family first is what I say to the boys, um, and I say that all the time because I, I believe in it personally. I will I put family first every day of the week. Now, weirdly, I work stupid hours. I work like 14 hours a day most days. So am I putting family first? Not on a weekday, but I get home, I sit around the dinner table, we talk rubbish, and I go to bed. But on the weekends, I’m there. And if there’s something that the kids need to be at, I’ll give up my time ’cause I can leave work easily ’cause I’m self-employed. So I’ll say no to events because I’ve got something on for the family. I believe I put family first, but when Scott, Daniel, Rob, or whoever it is that’s involved, um, uh, need something or need to do something, I would prefer they put their time into their family than anything AFTM. Um, and speaking of family, and I’ll say this here because it’s, it’s like the quiet club, all right? And this news is now a week old, but I don’t think I would have announced it anywhere yet. But just between you and me, part of the family now is jbbuddy.com. Do you remember a year ago we— I think we had Kyle on the show, um, we certainly talked about on the radio and I published it on EFTM. jbbuddy.com, a website created by a young Aussie guy who just wanted to be able to give you the better prices, find the best price for a model. So I’ve been playing around with obviously the EFTM TV search, the buyer guide, and love it. Still a big fan of mucking around with it and it’s great information for me. But I’ve also got to work on getting the prices. So what I’m essentially hoping to leverage through acquiring JBuddy.com, and by acquiring, I mean I didn’t buy the domain name, I bought it all. EFTM now owns the whole site, the database and the processes. And Kyle is helping out on an ongoing basis for the next couple of years at the very least. Run it, manage it, and keep it up to date. But we’ve also agreed to work together over the couple of months ahead to build out my thing and his thing into something pretty special. So I imagine in my mind, just between you and me, I imagine you’ve got the JB— the point of JBuddy is I know what I want, find me the best price. The point of the EFTN, which TV to buy, is I don’t know what I want, help me out. And so you essentially come in with the first question, do you know what you want? Or do you want our help finding it? And you cascade through the flowchart, and we will end up finding you the best price online without any affiliate marketing, without taking any commission, just through sheer data power. So welcome to the family, JBuddy. Thank you to Kyle, who was absolutely awesome about the concept and the process. And yeah, really, really excited to take that data and make something of it for TV buyers. Lots of TVs are bought and sold every year, so let’s be part of that. Let’s be part of that conversation. I’ll be honest with you, I can’t stop thinking about doing the same thing for electric cars. Like, I know there’s websites that narrow these things down, but they overcomplicate it. It’s like car sales and you’ve got to answer too many questions. No, no, I just want an electric car with range this long. Oh, but, but it’s less than this price. I don’t know, I feel like there might be something in that. Producer Rob, make a note. It’s already in my head. It’s in my personal notebook pretty heavily, but I’ve got to think about how. Anyway, I shouldn’t openly think out loud. It’s bad for me. Let’s get on with the show. Let’s take your calls, uh, whatever it is. 0477 657 657.

[00:08:22] VOICE OVER: This is the EFTM podcast.

[00:08:27] Trevor: Great to have your company and taking your calls. Anytime you’ve got a tech question, you know where to go. You can save it in your phone. 0477 657 657. We’ll try and help you out. Blake’s on the line.

Blake — Bone conduction headphones for a truckie

[00:08:36] VOICE OVER: G’day, mate.

[00:08:37] Blake: G’day, Trev, how are you?

[00:08:38] Trevor: Hey, really good. What can I do for you?

[00:08:41] Blake: Just want to inquire, and apologies about my voice.

[00:08:44] Trevor: That’s okay.

[00:08:44] Blake: I just want to inquire about these, um, faux conductive headphones that I keep seeing popping up everywhere.

[00:08:50] Trevor: You’re getting ads for them on the internet, are you? Oh, flat out.

[00:08:56] Blake: Holy Julie.

[00:08:57] Trevor: And so why do you think they’d be right for you?

[00:09:00] Blake: Well, that’s what I want to find out. Um, I’ll probably I do sort of stick with the earbud system for most of my day talking on the phone. But yeah, just wondering if they’re sort of worth the change and if they’re safe in that regard with the EMFs.

[00:09:23] Trevor: Yeah. Oh, there’s certainly no safety concern at all with them because they’re essentially exactly the same headphones as what you’ve got now, except they vibrate against your skull instead of projecting sound in your ears. So the waves, instead of waves coming into your ears, it’s a wave going into your bone. Does that make sense? So that’s how the sound works. I don’t know, I think for me, I see them as a really valuable thing for people that are walking and running because they are what we call open. You know, your ears are still exposed to the world. So if someone yells out, “Oi, look out!” you know, you hear it.

[00:09:58] Blake: You’re gonna hear it.

[00:09:59] Trevor: You know, so that’s critical for people that are on the go, especially out running, which is why I think they’re perfect for runners.

[00:10:04] Trevor: Is that Is that what I understand? Yes. Yeah. So mate, one of the things I would say to you is I don’t love wearing in-ear headphones for a long time. So I wonder whether as a truckie, they become like in your ear, it kind of, it becomes uncomfortable. So bone conducting would be brilliant in that sense. ‘Cause they’re just kind of sitting on your ear and your head. They’re not really in your ear or even hanging on your ear. And I’ve seen some that have a little headset mic on them, which would mean excellent quality for making phone calls if that’s what you’re doing all day up in the big rig, you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. So mate, I know there’s probably a lot of ads for them, but the one— I’ve only seen one, I would call them traditional brand, doing them. I’m sure there’s hundreds of brands doing them online, but the brand I would recommend is Shox. S-H-O-K-Z. Shox. And the reason I recommend them is not just because they’re sold in JB Hi-Fi and they’re reputable brand, I’ve seen their other products. They’re the one that I can I see online they’ve got one with a little headset microphone at JB— at Officeworks. So I reckon that one would be awesome for the truck because you’re gonna get great quality calls, comfortable, and yeah, it’s gonna work great for you, mate.

[00:11:21] Blake: Fantastic. All right, so time to go shopping, mate. I’ll save some money for something like a pair of shocks, and I won’t waste any time and money with those ones I keep seeing advertised.

[00:11:30] Trevor: And mate, let us know how they go. And are you talking on your phone or earbuds now?

[00:11:35] Blake: I’m talking on the earbuds now, mate.

[00:11:37] Trevor: So then you need to make me a promise. Producer Rob will reach out in a few weeks and see if you bought them, and then let’s have a quick 2-minute chat to see what the quality is like.

[00:11:44] Blake: All right, all right, mate. Copy that, will do.

[00:11:47] Trevor: Brilliant stuff, mate. Stay safe out there.

[00:11:49] Blake: Legend, Trev. Good on you, mate.

[00:11:50] Trevor: All the best. No worries at all. Yeah, Blake’s in the truck, um, and very important you stay safe on the roads and focus. So yeah, I think the Bone can— I’ve seen more people running with them lately, and I think That’s a safety thing, which is awesome. I want people to be safe when they’re walking. Think about the looking down at your phone when they’re crossing the road thing. That’s bad enough, but people running that can’t hear the world around them, that’s a challenge too. So yeah, Shox, they definitely, they make a lot of products. So that would be a great option right there for Blake.

[00:12:22] VOICE OVER: You’re listening to the EFTM podcast. Join the conversation, head to eftm.com.au. And click Ask Trev.

[00:12:40] Trevor: Great to have your company. Would love to hear from you. If you want to talk tech, if you’ve got a tech question, tech problem, whatever it might be, 0477657657. Send me a text or a WhatsApp message and we’ll get you on the show. Producer Rob will be in touch. Margaret’s on the line. G’day, Marg.

Margaret — Playing AI-written songs for nursing home residents

[00:12:53] Margaret: Hi, Trevor. What can I do for you?

[00:12:55] Trevor: Oh, my absolute pleasure.

[00:12:57] Margaret: I have a question. I’m a volunteer at a local nursing home. Where I’ve started writing songs for the residents, but most of the residents don’t have mobile phones. So I’m hoping you can suggest another device that they could maybe have in their room so they can listen to their song, because otherwise I have to be there and play it on my iPad.

[00:13:18] Trevor: Yeah, right. So you can play to them whenever you want, but obviously if you’re not there, which you’re not all the time, they’re going to struggle. Now, are you talking about like a speaker device or what kind of device?

[00:13:30] Margaret: I don’t know. In the past, like a long time ago, I know my daughter had like an iPod or there were MP3 players and that sort of thing. But all I have is my iPad and my phone. But I can send the song to a phone. So what else could I send the song to so that someone could come in and maybe press the button for them every now and then and they could listen to their song?

[00:13:52] Trevor: What, um, do you use Amazon for shopping at all?

[00:13:57] Margaret: Um, yes, I’ve got a Prime membership, I think.

[00:13:59] Trevor: Well, I mean, you could be in a world of pain here like I am. I’m just looking, I just logged on to mine and I can see so many items in the shopping cart and I realize my wife has put all these things in the shopping cart to discuss with me because they’re clearly— she’s trying to renovate my bathroom here at the office and I can see that’s what they are. But anyway, as I browse, what I searched for on Amazon was speaker because we want it to be a speaker, right? Not a device. MP3, because you’re gonna— what you’re gonna create hopefully are MP3 files that you can then put onto. We want to put an MP3 file onto a device like we used to do with an iPod, but we wanted to be a device they can hear out of without having to pair with Bluetooth and all that kind of thing, right? That’s in my mind, that’s the ultimate. That’s what, that’s what I think would be kind of perfect. Um, so Straight away on Amazon, a lot of little, like less than $20 speakers come up. They look like they’re going to be absolutely tiny, tiny little things. So look, you could buy one of those and just see how it works, because the problem is always going to be the ease of use. You know, you’re relying on, you know, a carer or a nurse or someone else at the facility to press the button or whatever for them. It can’t be true. You can’t make it too complex for them right now. The good news is you might just You might end up with just something that is, you only put one file on it, or if you put two or three files on it, it always just plays through the three and they don’t get to choose the song or choose the music, but it still would do the job. But the other one, the other brand I want you to look at is Laser, Aussie company, and they make, you know, affordable electronics normally sold at places like Big W and sometimes Harvey Norman and the like. And I know they have a range of products. They’ve got a portable Boombox. Now it’s $100. It looks exactly like an old-school cassette boombox, right? Yeah, it will play cassettes, but it also has a micro SD card slot. And so again, you could save your song onto that memory card and put it onto, um, put it onto the boombox and play it there. Thing is though I mean, we’re spending money on every resident here. It’s starting to cost you a bit, right? How many residents have you made songs for?

[00:16:24] Margaret: At the moment, about 10 out of 160.

[00:16:26] Trevor: Oh, okay. Wow.

[00:16:29] Trevor: Okay. Yeah, that’s going to add up. That’s going to add up a lot. Now, I— here’s what I’ve got to go. I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I talk to the people at Laser, Chris and Ronnie Briskett and the team at Laser who make these products, and ask them what their simplest/most affordable product would be, ’cause if it’s the $100 unit, fine, but whatever. And let’s get you one and see how it works. Oh, really? Because then we know how it works and if that’s gonna be viable for you long-term. Because whether it’s 10 residents or 100, the problem will always be the people that need to operate it, be it the family member or the carer. And I think you need to play with that first. So if you’re okay with that, I will talk to the team at Laser and I’ll ask them.

[00:17:20] Margaret: Wow.

[00:17:21] Trevor: The simple question, can we— what would be their advice in this situation? And, and, and can we get one for Margaret so that you can— so you can use it?

[00:17:29] Margaret: All right, that would be wonderful. Try it out anyway.

[00:17:33] Trevor: How are you writing these songs? You’re a musician?

[00:17:36] Margaret: No, no, no. This is just, um, AI music. AI. I write all the lyrics, I put them into a program, and it gives me the song.

[00:17:44] Trevor: And now hang on, I did this years— it feels like maybe a year ago, or I don’t know, but there was a thing called, uh, uh, is that the one thing you’re using?

[00:17:53] Margaret: Yeah, that’s the one.

[00:17:54] Trevor: But in this case, you’re writing the lyrics, are you?

[00:17:56] Margaret: Yes, they’re my lyrics.

[00:17:59] Trevor: Right. So you’re writing the lyrics and then you tell it what style of song you want.

[00:18:03] Margaret: Yes, all of that. I spend half an hour with the resident and ask them all their life questions, and then I go home, write the song, come back the next day and I play it for them. Beautiful. You know, they get a kick out of it and so do I. Yeah.

[00:18:18] Trevor: Producer Rob sent me a message and a link to what I assume because it’s called For Trevor. I assume you’ve written this for me.

[00:18:26] Margaret: Oh yeah, it’s your song. Yes, that’s your song.

[00:18:28] Trevor: Well, I’ll play the whole thing. I’ll play the whole thing at the end of the show, but let me, let me, let me play just a little bit of it now. Okay, so hang on, let’s, let’s have a listen to a little bit of this.

[00:18:48] [Song clip plays]

[00:19:18] Trevor: Well, that’s wild. So you wrote these lyrics?

[00:19:21] Margaret: I did last night.

[00:19:22] Trevor: Yeah. Listen, how long have you been following or listening to me?

[00:19:27] Margaret: I’ve always seen you on television for years, years and years. Goes way back.

[00:19:32] Trevor: Wow.

[00:19:33] Margaret: Yeah. You’ve always got something interesting on the Today Show for sure.

[00:19:37] Trevor: That’s very nice. Well, that’s lovely. I’ll play the whole thing at the end of the show so people can hear the whole song. Okay. So, all right, we’ve got a plan because it’s a lovely thing you’re doing for the residents there. So you just do this in your your spare time? Because you’re retired, did you say?

[00:19:50] Margaret: I am retired. I couldn’t work anymore because of my health, but my husband’s in the nursing home, and so I spend my day with him and then I go home and write.

[00:19:58] Trevor: Oh wow. And so you spend your day with him, but you also duck out and see the other residents at the same time?

[00:20:03] Margaret: Yes, absolutely. I’m a volunteer.

[00:20:06] Trevor: That’s so lovely. And it’s lovely that you can, you can spend that time with your husband as well, which is important. And has— how many songs, how many songs you’ve written for Oh, heaps and heaps.

[00:20:17] Margaret: I couldn’t remember. I’ve written over 300 songs altogether.

[00:20:21] Margaret: So he comes into quite a lot of them.

[00:20:22] Trevor: How did you come across Suno?

[00:20:25] Margaret: Well, I’ve been writing poetry and putting it on Facebook, and I said to my son-in-law, he came down from Alice Springs, and I said, “I’d really like to hear this sung.” And he said, “All right, Mum.” And he looked up on Google and he said, “This is programmed for Suno.” ‘And would you like to try it out?’ I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ And so that’s how I started. I bought the— I didn’t buy anything. I did the free membership for a little while, and then I thought, ‘No, I’m just going to pay the subscription because then they’re my songs. They don’t belong to, you know.’ Oh, gotcha. Now they’re mine. Yeah. So I pay a small subscription every year and I can write that many songs. I can’t use up all the credits that I’ve got. That’s wonderful.

[00:21:07] Trevor: Oh, because I feel like when I tested it out some while ago, it— I paid some money for credits or something. And so yeah, I could churn out songs. Is there a different plan that says you kind of own the rights as well?

[00:21:23] Margaret: Or there are 3 different levels of plan, right? So you can do the freebie, but the songs don’t belong to you. So if you pay the next subscription up, they do belong to you. Then there’s a higher one for pro, which I’m not going to go that far. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it’s fun just to have a go. It will write songs for you. I know there’s an option, but these are all my lyrics.

[00:21:46] Trevor: Yeah, I remembered using it and it was like you could give it a theme or an idea and it would come up with the lyrics and everything. So you’re, you’re essentially using it for half the process. I notice in your lyrics, because now that I’m looking at the one you sent.

[00:22:00] Trevor: You, there’s little prompts there for. Yeah. You know, musical, like chorus and things like that. Are you putting those prompts in or is that doing that?

[00:22:09] Margaret: Now I have to do all that.

[00:22:11] Trevor: Right. So that it understands— you’re essentially explaining the song to it.

[00:22:14] Margaret: Yes. You have to get— otherwise you don’t get what you want back.

[00:22:17] Trevor: So how long did it take you to learn? Because that’s a really critical learning about AI is what you need to give it is more important than actually the basics.

[00:22:27] Margaret: Yes, that’s exactly right. Probably in the last 6 months I’ve become a lot better at it. Knowing how to put the prompts in and what to say that I want to get whatever back. You have to put the right words in, otherwise it gives you something that’s totally off the planet. Yeah. And you just have to scrub that song. But, you know, you’ve got— I’ve got that many credits, so it doesn’t matter. They like to mess you up every now and then, I’m sure, just to use up the credit, just to use up some credits. Yes, but it’s fun. You know, you can just delete them. It doesn’t matter.

[00:22:56] Trevor: Well, I’ve got 550 credits. I don’t know how many that is. Oh, is that a lot or a little?

[00:23:01] Margaret: That’s— yeah, it’s 10 credits when you get 2 songs.

[00:23:04] Trevor: Oh geez.

[00:23:05] Margaret: Okay, so you’ve got a lot.

[00:23:07] Trevor: I obviously went crazy in the early days.

[00:23:11] Margaret: You have to start writing.

[00:23:12] Trevor: I’m almost certain that I’ve since unsubscribed or, you know, turned it off because I see what happens in my life is I sign up for everything because I’ve got to test everything. And then— and I’m lucky I’ve got a business. This is my job and my business. So it’s all a business expense. But every now and then I go, hey, Trev, like, we should tighten the purse strings here. A little bit and you just go through the AMEX statement and you go, hang on a minute, $12 a month here, $20 a month there.

[00:23:39] Margaret: Yes, it adds up.

[00:23:39] Trevor: And it really does add up. So I know, yeah, I can imagine what I did was go, give me all the credits on day one and thought it was nice.

[00:23:49] Margaret: You probably did.

[00:23:50] Trevor: All right, well, I might have another play around with it and have some fun. But well done on the lyrics. Thank you for the little song about me and lovely work you’re doing for the residents there. And I hope your husband’s doing okay. And we Producer Rob will reach out and we’ll get your address details and we’ll get the people at Laser to get in touch and get you something to play with and see whether that’s going to help.

[00:24:11] Margaret: That’s great. Oh, I’m so excited. Thank you very much for your time.

[00:24:15] Trevor: No worries at all.

[00:24:16] Margaret: Thanks for the chat. Appreciate it.

[00:24:17] Trevor: Thank you. Good on you, mate. No worries at all. Isn’t that lovely? What a lovely thing she’s doing. And, you know, it’s heartbreaking to have to think about going and visiting your own partner in a home every single day. But then she’s taken that and she’s, she’s doing some lovely things for other people as well. That’s just lovely. So let’s try and help Margaret out as much as we can there. And the Chris and the boys will absolutely send us something and we’ll see if that’s going to be— maybe give her some sense of what, what might work for the longer term as well. You’re listening to the EFTM Podcast.

[00:24:51] VOICE OVER: Tech, cars, lifestyle. This is the EFTM Podcast with Trevor Long.

[00:24:57] Trevor: Lovely to have your company, and if you have a tech question, please get in touch. Send me an SMS 0477 657657, or you can send a WhatsApp message, whatever you prefer, and we’ll get you on the show, try and help you out. Laurie’s on the line. G’day, Laurie.

Laurie — Replacing a 7-year-old ASUS laptop

[00:25:09] Laurie: Hi, Trevor. Good morning.

[00:25:11] Trevor: What can I do for you?

[00:25:13] Laurie: Look, I have had problems with my ASUS laptop, which I have owned for about 7 years, and I think it’s on its last legs. It doesn’t want to do what I want it to do. So is it, is it slow?

[00:25:28] Trevor: Is it slow or is it running out of battery? What’s happening to it?

[00:25:31] Laurie: Yes, it’s slow. Not only slow, it’s the battery that is a big problem. I have to keep it charged to power all day long if I’m using the laptop.

[00:25:41] Trevor: Yeah. Do you know anything about the model number?

[00:25:43] Laurie: Uh, yes, I do. It’s a 509F, ASUS 509F. Because I did ring ASUS at one of their branches, I think based at Seven Hills, and the guy said to me, you can get a battery, but, uh, you know, we first have to check it out. And they this and that and the other. And I thought by the time he checks it out, I will have covered a quarter of the cost of getting a new laptop.

[00:26:08] Trevor: It’s— and that’s the challenge because back in the day when— remember when laptops were like an inch and a half thick when they first came out? You could— there was like two clips and the battery would come out and they actually often came with a second battery so that you could get through the day.

[00:26:23] Laurie: You’re right.

[00:26:24] Trevor: Whereas these days they’re kind of wired in. So it’s not something you can do yourself. Is the bottom line there. Do you know how much that laptop cost you back 7 years ago?

[00:26:34] Laurie: About 7 years, I paid about $1,100, I think.

[00:26:37] Trevor: So it was a decent valued laptop. And do you feel like, forgetting the current problem, do you feel like you got good value out of it over 7 years?

[00:26:46] Laurie: I do. I have to say I did. And, you know, I have no regrets if it’s kind of—

[00:26:53] Trevor: if it’s time to—

[00:26:54] Laurie: it’s old.

[00:26:54] Trevor: You know what? I appreciate you’re 4 foresight there, because that’s what I was getting at. Essentially, I think you’re right, you can replace the battery, and it may— let’s say the battery replacement, the physical battery, is a couple of hundred dollars and the labor is a couple of hundred dollars. Let’s say you’re in for $500 or $600, right? Yeah, maybe even a little bit less. That’s half the price of what you paid for it. And the reason that doesn’t sound like a smart move is because we’ve come so far with laptops in 7 years. I would argue we’ve come so far with laptops in 2 years. What do you mainly do on the laptop? What do you use it for?

[00:27:33] Laurie: I’ll tell you, because I’ve retired, I do mainly my Word documents. I keep track of my accounts, which is my payment of bills, bank statements, whatever, on an Excel spreadsheet. So I know, you know, I have all my paperwork in chronological order. And of course, just emails that I get from friends and family. And that’s basically what I use it for.

[00:27:59] Trevor: And how big is the screen on it, do you know?

[00:28:02] Laurie: Yeah, 15.6 inches. Yep. Yeah.

[00:28:05] Trevor: So here’s the thing, a modern ASUS brand new 15-inch Intel Pentium, 256GB of hard drive space is $800. Oh wow, for a brand new— and this is a nice big laptop with a— with— it’s got a stupid thing to observe, but it has a number pad on the side of the keyboard so you can type numbers on the side, you know, like a proper— yes, uh, big screen keyboard. Um, yes, that would be That would be the cheapest one I’d want you to get, because anything less than that, there’s probably going to be some form of compromise. Yes. Outside of that, there’s obviously a lot of money you could spend, a lot, a lot of different amounts of money on a, on a computer these days. But an interesting observation would be, in, in my view, one of the most beautiful laptops on the market today is the ASUS ZenBook A14. I think, in fact, I don’t have my magazine near me, but I’m pretty sure we gave this best laptop of the year last year in our awards. It’s normal, it’s normally $2,000. It’s currently on sale at JB Hi-Fi at $1,600, $1,599. Okay, now there’s a couple of things about this device. Big hard drive, very thin, thin and beautiful. It’s only a 14-inch screen, but it’s a beautiful OLED screen. It has this stunning feel to it. It’s got this lovely feeling on the outside. It doesn’t feel like a cheap laptop at all. And because it has what’s called a Qualcomm processor instead of Intel, it’s going to last— the battery on this thing will last 20, maybe 30 hours.

[00:29:43] Laurie: Right.

[00:29:44] Trevor: Okay, this is— this computer will last you the, the same. It’ll be a 5 or 7 year laptop for you once again. I have no question about that.

[00:29:53] Laurie: Um, sure.

[00:29:54] Trevor: And, and look, that’s an extra investment. I hear the 16— so you basically— I’m presenting you two options. Options. $800 for a lovely— it’s a beautiful— have a look at these on JB Hi-Fi. It’s a lovely looking laptop with all the ports and HDMI and everything you might need if you needed a few extra little bells and whistles. $800, lovely. But double that and you are getting what I think— and I remember my wife is not heavily engaged in what I do for a job, right? But she notices things, and she was, she was looking at my magazine last year where I, I gave this device an award. Board. And then a few weeks later, she said to me, oh my God, Oprah has given this— has her best laptop of the year. Oprah Winfrey, people.

[00:30:35] Laurie: Yeah.

[00:30:36] Trevor: So if it’s good enough for Oprah, it’s good enough for, for Laurie, I reckon.

[00:30:41] Laurie: Yeah, I guess so. Trevor, one question about the big hard drive you mentioned. Is it 1TB? No, this is what I have at the moment.

[00:30:50] Trevor: The, the, uh, the ASUS ZenBook A14 that I’m looking at is 512 I would wonder how much of the 1TB are you actually using?

[00:31:00] Laurie: I haven’t used a lot because like I said, you know, I don’t need a lot of— I actually store all my data, my important data on an external hard drive, which means, you know, if anything happens to the laptop, I haven’t lost everything.

[00:31:16] Trevor: Yeah. And look, that’s why I would— I’d be amazed if you needed 256. I’d be amazed. So if you were able to get the 512, it’d be a nice balance between what you have now and, and what you really need. And you stay in that habit of using external hard drive for your important documents.

[00:31:34] Laurie: Oh yeah, I do.

[00:31:35] Trevor: But at the same time, Laurie, have you got any cloud storage available to you?

[00:31:39] Laurie: No, because I use my hard drive, so I don’t know much about cloud storage. I have to admit, I’m out of the workforce for the last 10, 12 years, you know.

[00:31:49] Trevor: Well, I want you to play around. If you— it sounds like you’ve got probably Microsoft 365 for your office.

[00:31:56] Laurie: Yes, I do.

[00:31:57] Trevor: That will come with, I don’t know how much, but it will come with an amount of storage in OneDrive.

[00:32:03] Laurie: Right, okay.

[00:32:03] Trevor: And I think OneDrive is a really nice integration of the cloud because it appears in a new computer in Windows 11, it appears like on the left-hand side of the File Explorer, it just looks like another hard drive. You remember how we, back in the day, we used to have an A drive, a C drive, and a B drive and whatever. These days, you know, they don’t really show that, but it’s still there. But essentially OneDrive appears like it’s a hard drive on your computer and you drag a file over there or you save by default all of your important spreadsheets and documents to OneDrive. You can still back them up to your external hard drive, but by default they’re saved in the cloud. And so if someone stole your laptop and you got a new one, you logged into your Microsoft account, all your files are still there.

[00:32:48] Laurie: Now tell me something, I do have OneDrive. I have absolutely no idea what it stood for. It shows up every time I open a Word document.

[00:32:57] Trevor: That’s what it is, because they want you to default to it. They— look, it’s a bit frustrating, but if you, if you made the decision that from, from the time I get my new computer, I’m gonna put, I’m gonna put my folders— so in your My Documents, I’m assuming you’ve got folders for different things. What you do is you store those folders in your OneDrive. And so by default, when you save a spreadsheet, you go OneDrive OneDrive, you know, family planning, OneDrive Christmas party, whatever, you know. And yeah, and it doesn’t make any difference to you and the computer, but whenever you’ve got an internet connection available, it’ll synchronize that up to the cloud. And then hey presto, you’re good to go and you’ll never lose that file again. And remember, you can still sync it to your hard drive, your little portable hard drive as well.

[00:33:44] Laurie: Yes, yes, that’s what I do on a regular basis. And one last question is, how do I get all my data transferred from the old C drive to the new one. What do I do? Do I have to go to a particular computer shop and get it done?

[00:33:59] Trevor: When you say data, what do you mean?

[00:34:02] Laurie: Your documents? The hard drive on— yes, my documents that are on the C drive. How do I transfer them across to the new laptop?

[00:34:09] Trevor: Well, you’ve got two options. Well, you’ve got three options. One, you could take it to someone and they will do that for you at a price. Two, you’ve got yourself an external hard drive. Just drop them there, put them on the external hard drive, or use this as your, your moment to start using OneDrive.

[00:34:27] Laurie: Okay, right, right.

[00:34:29] Trevor: And here’s the number one thing for someone that’s using the— because the great thing is your computer’s not dead, so when you buy a new one, you’re gonna have them sitting side by side, which is great. Yes, yes. So you don’t have to panic about losing something. Yes. But if you just tonight, this afternoon, today, whenever you want, just create a single folder in OneDrive OneDrive and move a few files in there, a couple of spreadsheets or whatever you like.

[00:34:52] Laurie: Yes, yes.

[00:34:52] Trevor: And then an hour later, open up the internet just in a browser and go to OneDrive on the internet, log in, and see if you can see those files. Because if you can see those files via a web browser, it means they’re in the cloud, and that’s all you need to do. And when you get your new computer, you just log into your Microsoft account and it will synchronize copies all that OneDrive onto the new computer for you.

[00:35:17] Laurie: Okay, so OneDrive is like another folder?

[00:35:22] Trevor: Exactly, except it’s another folder, but it’s in a building outside of your home.

[00:35:28] Laurie: Okay, I see. And I need to create a login ID to get—

[00:35:34] Trevor: No, it’s just your Microsoft one. It’s probably already logged in. It’s probably already logged in because you, you have Microsoft 365 and all those things. So if you go to— I’m actually, I’m gonna guess here, but I think it’s onedrive.com because I don’t really use it that much myself. Yeah, if you go to onedrive.com, mine has automatically logged me in as Trevor Long using my Microsoft account, and I can see in here a bunch of files that I’ve saved in my OneDrive. There’s some company reports I’ve done and different things because I’ve been using a Windows computer at the time. Easy as pie. It just, it’s just, it’s just another folder older, but it’s, uh, not on your computer, right?

[00:36:15] Laurie: And if for some reason I want to remove the old hard drive that I have on the current ASUS laptop, I can do that, isn’t it?

[00:36:23] Trevor: Remove it physically?

[00:36:25] Laurie: Yeah, physically, and then just smash it up after I’ve done all the copying from the C drive to the external hard drive.

[00:36:33] Trevor: If you’ve got a screwdriver and pulled that computer apart with all your mouse Yeah, with the greatest respect, I don’t think you’d know which was the hard drive in there.

[00:36:42] Laurie: No, I don’t, because you know what happened? I rang Bunnings one time and they told me what to do. They literally sent me a picture and I gave it to my brother-in-law who got it out for me.

[00:36:53] Trevor: Here’s what I’d do. I’d go to Bunnings. I’d go to Bunnings. I’d buy a set of safety glasses and a pair of safety gloves and a sledgehammer. And I would have all the fun in the world on the driveway smashing that laptop.

[00:37:07] Laurie: Oh, good on you, well done.

[00:37:11] Trevor: Because, Laurie, if you take that laptop to your local e-waste recycling center, yeah, ain’t no one there gonna look at the hard drive, trust me. Oh really? Don’t worry about it.

[00:37:21] Laurie: I don’t know, people scare you to death about having hard drives.

[00:37:25] Trevor: I get it. But Laurie, do you work in the Defence Department?

[00:37:28] Laurie: No, I don’t.

[00:37:29] Trevor: Do you work for ASIO?

[00:37:31] Laurie: No, I work for the state government.

[00:37:33] Trevor: So do you have state government secrets on that laptop? No, no, no one’s, no one’s looking at you through a window waiting for you to throw that laptop out.

[00:37:42] Laurie: Okay. Yeah, we do have a lot of recycling service centers.

[00:37:47] Trevor: Yeah, e-waste recycling. Do the right thing with it. Send it into e-waste recycling. And, and yeah, if you want to open it up and try and remove the hard drive yourself. But it’s not that hard if you can locate which is which.

[00:37:59] Laurie: No, it’s not. Because Bunnings actually sent me a picture step by step.

[00:38:03] Laurie: My brother-in-law is pretty good. He’s a handyman. So he got it out for me.

[00:38:08] Trevor: All right. The ASUS ZenBook A14 would be an absolute cracker if you got it.

[00:38:12] Laurie: So the ZenBook A14.

[00:38:14] Trevor: All right. Enjoy.

[00:38:15] Laurie: And it’s sitting around $1,599.

[00:38:16] Trevor: If you go now, you’ll get it nice and cheap.

[00:38:19] Laurie: Yeah. Actually, as you said, it’s now the end of financial year season. Yes. So I may shop around. Good idea.

[00:38:25] Trevor: Good on you, Laurie. Great to hear from you.

[00:38:28] Trevor: Yes, no worries at all. Lovely to hear from you. So there you go, we’ve solved that problem. Um, you know, it’s— I think 7 years is a good, good number for a Windows laptop. And I do think critically that point about fixing that now gives you access— so changing the battery gives you access to a 7-year-old laptop. Very different to a 7-year-old phone or 5-year-old phone. Alone because we’ve come so far in the last few years with laptops. So I think the current laptop is a much better investment than the repair.

[00:39:03] VOICE OVER: Tech, cars, lifestyle— this is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long. You can text Trev now thanks to Vodafone on 0477 657 657.

[00:39:17] Trevor: Great to have your company. Bruce is on the line. G’day, Bruce.

Bruce — Battery-powered smart speaker for bathroom intercom

[00:39:20] Bruce: How are you, Troy?

[00:39:21] Trevor: Really good. What can I do for you?

[00:39:23] Bruce: I have a Google Nest and smart speakers in my house, and the problem is my wife says if she’s in the bathroom and something happens, she calls out, I can’t hear her downstairs. So what I’m looking for is a speaker, preferably a battery-powered speaker, to put in the bathroom so we can broadcast if she needs help or I need help.

[00:39:45] Trevor: Hang on, so it has to be a smart speaker?

[00:39:49] Bruce: Well, any sort of speaker that can broadcast.

[00:39:52] Trevor: That can broadcast as in a message from— like an intercom? Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s going to have to be a smart speaker. Yes. I can’t think of another way of doing it, frankly. But you’re all in on the Google system, are you? Yes. They used the original Google Home, which was a funny looking cylindrical thing with an angled top. There was aftermarket accessories that came out mount for it that allowed you to put it on a battery. Yes, but I haven’t— like, the biggest problem we’ve got is that they’re not— are they even selling Google speakers in Australia anymore?

[00:40:26] Bruce: Well, the trouble is I’ve got the Google Nest and the Google Smart speakers, but I’ve had looked online and I really can’t find anything. That’s what worries me. I mean, I’ve got the system and it’s— I can’t get another speaker.

[00:40:40] Trevor: Yeah, honestly, Google has just got this weird thing where they’ve just almost abandoned the market. I feel like they’re waiting for the fullness of technology to hit the speakers so that we get Gemini with the speakers as opposed to just, um, uh, what it is now, a very, you know, not conversational speaker. However, I would argue, and I’m almost certain as I Google it right now, yes, there are plenty of products made for Amazon Alexa speakers. So I’m just looking now at what this is. It’s a battery base. ‘Cause look, mate, Amazon Echo speakers are sensational. They’re okay. And here’s the great thing, you can have both. There’s nothing, we’ve got a Google speaker in the dining room, which pretty much only gets used to set timers while we’re cooking. And it’s got a really big clock on it. So when my wife’s aunt, who’s intellectually disabled, is around, she’s always like, when’s lunch? And we’re like, look at the clock. And it’s a big digital clock and she can see that it’s not 12 o’clock. Yet. But in the lounge room we’ve got an Alexa speaker for playing music and things. So you can have both.

[00:41:46] Bruce: No, I didn’t. I wasn’t aware of that because I’ve used my Google Nest for my, for my broadband and I didn’t know you could mix.

[00:41:55] Trevor: Yep, 100%. So basically what do you use the Google speakers for?

[00:42:02] Bruce: Just basically playing music. There’s one in a room where my wife does yoga. I use that. And I’ve got a display downstairs with some photos on it.

[00:42:13] Trevor: Yeah, that’s about it. So there are— and a doorbell and a doorbell, right? So the only time it becomes complex having two is when one can do something that the other can’t. So for example, if you have a set of smart lights that only one can control. But the good thing is normally that happens across Apple versus the others because there’s some stuff that’s only HomeKit compatible or that’s not HomeKit compatible. But I’ve never found a product that isn’t both Google and Alexa compatible. Compatible. Even a smart light from Bunnings is normally going to have Google and Alexa compatibility. It just means you’ve got to set it up twice. So if you had a smart light, you can set it up twice. Your Nest doorbell camera is still going to be answered through the Nest app or the Google Home app on your phone, and it’s going to show up on that screen in the house. It’s not going to show up on an Alexa screen. But right now I can already see that, mate, if you go to Amazon, an Amazon Echo speaker, they’re like under $100, right?

[00:43:04] Trevor: And, and a quick search online, I found a company called which make these battery bases for Echo speakers, and there’s heaps of them. There’s— they’re about— like, they might be in the US, so I don’t know, we need to find a local option. But I suspect if you spend a little bit of time on the Amazon website, you’ll find a bunch of battery options. Okay, great. And that, mate, you just got to set up one. And the great thing is the Amazon— if you bought two, you can do— oh, do they call it announce? There’s a term they use for it on the Alexa app, and and it allows you to speak to the other speaker, right? And that’s all you’re doing is you’re just announcing to the other speaker what it is you want said, and it gets said on air. Weirdly, I did it on the Today Show, I don’t know, 8 years ago, and I weirdly saw the segment the other day come up in a YouTube memory or something. And it was, yeah, it was just simple demo of just on the phone, I spoke to the phone and then it came up and spoke what I said. It transmitted my voice onto the speaker sitting on the studio.

[00:44:11] Trevor: Great little system and you can do it from one speaker to another. So you can say— I’m not going to say the term Alexa— you can say hey to the speaker and announce this to the bedroom or announce this to the bathroom and it will announce it just to that room. Great.

[00:44:27] Bruce: Thank you for your help.

[00:44:28] Trevor: Appreciate it. All right, buddy. Anytime. No worries at all. Thank you. Thanks, mate. Cheers. Yeah, I mean, there’s something weird about— I mean, let’s look at the Google Store. Google Store, because it used to be, uh, that they would sell a bunch of products. And you remember that they had— they were the first smart home here. Speakers. Let’s click on speakers. Nest Mini. You can still buy Nest Mini. Is this Australia though? Oh, I don’t know. It actually thinks we’re in Australia. Uh, I’m going to change it to AU. EN-AU. It still comes back to GB. So there is a Nest Mini for $79. Um, all of them are out of stock. Like, it’s listed on the website, but it’s out of stock. That’s the biggest tease ever. All of them out of stock. The big Nest Audio and the Nest Mini, all out of stock. Completely useless. Ah, goodness me, you can’t win with these people. So yeah, I would— uh, the display’s in stock. Let’s have a look at that. Hub Max out of stock. Uh, Hub 2nd Gen out of stock. Google just unbelievably out of stock.

[00:45:41] Trevor: Yes, I’m searching JB Hi-Fi now. Nope, no smart speakers. Isn’t that wild? No smart speakers from Google. They’re just letting Amazon run this country, and people like Bruce are just going to go and get Amazon speakers because they’re easy to set up and done. Oh well, good luck to them, but that’s, uh, it’s a great solution there for Bruce.

[00:46:01] VOICE OVER: This is the EFTM podcast.

[00:46:08] Trevor: Thank you for listening. Another great show. And I made a promise there while talking to Margaret, we played a bit of the song. We could play the whole song, why not? She wrote these lyrics. Margaret wrote these lyrics, and what a wonderful human being she is for everything she’s doing in that facility for those lovely people. So she’s gone to the trouble of writing this for me. I think we should absolutely play the whole thing. Um, so thank you, Margaret, for this. Thank you for taking the time, and thank you to Suno for putting a sound to this. And I can tell you, I think from what I can see here, I’m just looking at the thing, um, summary. I’m going to copy this summary so I can read it easier. Um, It says her instructions on this, we’re kind of cheating here a bit, we’re learning Margaret’s vibe, but her instructions are follow the instructions, free-flowing lyrics, verses, beautiful engaging music, medium to slightly upbeat tempo, very deep, rich, smooth, beautiful female voice, singer-songwriter with a clear diction, love song, clicking percussion sounds, breathing noises, choir, speaking voice, male vocals, clicking, fermata, vibrato, classical, epic, American accent clapping. Wow, that’s a lot of— oh, sorry, those are negatives. So love song, no clicking, no percussion sound, no breathing noises, no choir, no speaking voice, etc. So there you go. So you can remove things from its thought as well. That’s very cool. So knowing that she wrote the lyrics, and what I meant in my conversation with her is she has these little notes in there which says intro verse, beautifully engaging music. Then it says chorus, multiple female voices singing louder. Then it says, like, it’s even got giggling in where she has the giggling sound. Then again, chorus, verse, etc. So, and musical outro, fade. They’re the instructions. It’s pretty detailed. So she’s learned over time how to essentially manipulate the AI to give her the result she wants. So without any further ado, here is the entire version. I think it’s about 4 minutes and 9 seconds of For Trevor, uh, written by Margaret, composed by Suno.

[00:48:49] [Song plays — “For Trevor” written by Margaret, composed via Suno]