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G'day G'day, welcome to another episode of the EFTM podcast.

G'day G'day, welcome to another episode of the ASTM podcast.

Great to have you company and it's official.

I have in my hot little hands the magazine.

Smells fresh and printed.

There are 3,000 copies still sitting at the printer

ready to be posted later this month.

There are 11,000 copies sitting at the Gamesman

that'll be shipped over Black Friday week

and around that time.

We've got an event this Thursday night

looking forward to seeing the team.

Both Daniel and Scott from EFTM are coming up.

The moderators, the Robs, except the Rob who's overseas,

producer Rob's overseas.

So we put the event on specifically

when producer Rob's away, that's worked out perfectly.

But Jolly, Rob, Matt, Matt, Glenn, they'll all be there.

And I look forward to seeing them

and seeing everyone from the industry

as we celebrate another year of EFTM and this magazine.

It's a very different magazine this year.

I think it's very different

because it's more editorially based.

There's a lot more of me just ranting about stuff.

I don't know, I feel like it's more readable.

But still, yeah, I'm happy with it.

It'll do.

It's as good as I can do on my own.

And it's funny, Phenic picked it up

because it arrived literally as we were recording last week.

And he goes, how much of this did you write?

I went mate, honestly.

I needed a best game.

So I got Daniel to give me a paragraph or three on that.

So best game Daniel wrote.

And for the smartphones, I got,

I read Daniel and Scott's reviews of a couple of phones

and essentially summarized what they'd said.

But every other word I wrote and designed.

I'm quite proud of it in that sense.

Canva has done me a solid there.

It's worked out pretty well.

It comes up okay.

So look, the plan is, as I said,

it's kind of a mid to late November launch.

It'll probably hit the post office 20th, 24th of November.

So don't just relax, okay?

Now, if you got it last year successfully in the post,

you'll get it again.

Okay, I'm just sending it again to the same people.

I'll probably get a few bounce backs.

The, on the website now, eftm.com,

you'll see a subscribe button on the homepage.

Can't miss it.

If you didn't get it last year or you've moved,

just add your address again.

And hopefully I'll spot the duplicates

and I will keep the most recent one.

That's the plan.

We were building a website where you could do all this.

That'll come next year.

It's development and time is a difficult thing

with everything from apps to this.

So I'll just keep it simple with this stuff.

But it's exciting because we've got

all the awards are in there.

So there's 24 awards this year,

down from like 45 or something last year

because that was some of the feedback

was a lot of awards.

But I'm super excited to do a competition again.

So we're doing 12 different competitions over 12 weeks.

Every single week, there is a prize to give away.

So even if you receive the magazine after this starts,

don't worry, the competition is in the app.

So if you're an EFTM fan and you got the app

on the win page, there'll be a competition.

And basically you can open the app every day,

click, all you do is tap on the competition

and it gives you an entry for that day.

And you can do that every day.

Once a day you can enter,

you'll get seven entries max in each competition.

So the first one is actually next week.

We're giving away an Oppo Reno 13 5G and $900 smartphone.

That's next week's prize.

After that, we've got headphones from JBL.

We've got a robot vacuum from EcoVax.

We've got a home security pack from ALI.

We've got an authentic speaker from JBL.

We've got an ROG Xbox Ally from ROG and ASUS.

We've got a Samsung bespoke

Jet AI Ultra Stick Vacuum in late December.

Then crossing over the new year, we've got a Fetch Mini.

We've got a Motorola Razer flip phone early January.

We've got a $2,500 high sense M2 Pro projector.

We've got a Netgear Nighthawk Wi-Fi 7 router

and to wrap it all up,

we've got a UniDent Dash View 60R camera in late January.

So those prizes go all the way through January.

And to be honest, here's the plan.

Plan is, and make a note, producer Rob, new job.

Plan is, I'm gonna have a spreadsheet.

Hint hint, producer Rob.

I'm gonna have a spreadsheet of prizes.

And where my goal for 2026 is to have a prize every week

or a competition every week

because there is in the budget currently,

assuming no more bloodshed occurs in my business planning

and there's been some bloodshed in the last week and a half

which I'll keep private.

Anyway, assuming no more bloodshed occurs in the business,

I have a big, big giveaway planned

for probably March, somewhere around there.

That'll be like a four week competition.

You can put two and two together on that one.

So that's the plan.

So basically I wanna give away something every week

or at least have you, look,

let's be honest with each other.

I want you opening the app every day.

And I know the app's not perfect.

It'll change, we'll improve it.

It'll be different, whatever.

But honestly, you wait 10 seconds, the thing loads.

You click on the win tab.

There's a competition there.

You tap it, you're entered.

I mean, it's not rocket science.

That's what I want.

And no, you know, hopefully you notice an article there

you wanna read as well.

That's the plan.

That's why I'm doing it.

And you know, some prizes will be 150 bucks.

Some prizes will be a thousand.

Some prizes will be much more than that.

But I want something to win every day.

I want every day there to be an entry

you can make in a competition.

And the more times you come,

the more days you visit the app,

the more likely you are to win.

So we had a huge response to the iPhone.

We'll do some cool pop-up ones like that.

We'll do a mega one at some point.

But yeah, that's the plan.

So that'll all launch with the magazine.

So yeah, looking forward to it.

And I'll just remind myself

that that competition starts next week.

So good times.

And so you're essentially the first people

to hear about that because the magazine,

frankly, won't be in anyone's hands

until mid to late November.

Cause I've got a Today Show segment next week

about the kind of best.

And that'll get some subscribers

and I'll send the list off after that.

So we've got a few thousand to send out in the post.

Anyway, it's all good.

All exciting.

That's so yes, you've got plenty of time.

Head to the website, eftm.com.

Click on the eftm magazine link

under the main kind of article tile.

You'll see it there.

What does it say?

Let me bring up the website

so you can be very not confused.

It's a big blue thing.

So it's 2025 EFTM magazine.

Subscribe now free.

Click there.

It's a Google form filling your details.

If you received it successfully last year,

don't worry, you will get it.

Simple as that.

Let's get on with the show

with lots of calls to get through.

That's today's plan.

The EFTM podcast,

thanks to Swan Buddy 4K,

the doorbell that answers the door for you.

Great to have you company.

If you've got a tech question,

I'd love to hear from you and help you out.

If I can, let's go with your calls here.

You can get in touch anytime,

0477657657.

Matt is on the line.

G'day Matt.

G'day Trevor, how are you?

Yeah, really good mate.

What can I do for you?

Yeah, I look, mate, I am,

I've been exploring, I guess,

some email organisation and software,

not software management, but yeah.

Email management platforms

that can help me out.

I'm in the work that I do.

I get lots of emails,

a lot of volume of emails

and I have expertise and skills in certain things,

but administration and organisation is not one of them.

So I'm looking for, yeah,

I guess a platform or something

that can help me get organised with

and manage the emails.

Potentially, you know,

I've seen some AI platforms

that'll help even draft responses to things for you.

So yeah, I'm looking at that

and I'm keen to, I guess, have a chat to you

about what some of the options could be

and what are the pros and cons of some of them.

Have you heard me talking about this

in the last couple of weeks?

Well, I did, but I literally...

No, I was just going to say

because it's wild that you would bring that up

because it is literally my number one thing right now.

It is, because I've talked about,

we talk about AI and chat to you,

it's amazing, it's cool,

but none of it helps me

with my fundamental problem,

which is I sit here at a computer,

I get hundreds of emails,

I've just migrated inside baseball,

I've just migrated all my email

from one Google account to another

and it was 1.3 million emails over 30 years or something,

but in the last three years,

it was 100,000 plus emails per year.

And that's a lot of emails, right?

100,000 emails divided by 365,

that's 270 emails a day.

It's like I'm not on top of that.

Now, a lot of them are just press releases and things,

but it means I'm not seeing them all.

So I was in Italy

and I was complaining about AI to Alborz,

who's the owner and boss of carexpert.com.au

and previously car advice.

And he goes, I use fixer.

And I went, oh, what's that?

He told me about it, F-Y-X-E-R.

Now, I signed up off the top of my head,

it's 35 bucks a month or something like that,

but don't tell them,

I'll pay 100 because I've only been using it for three weeks

and it's a game changer.

So I'm using it on Gmail,

so I don't know how well it works on other platforms,

but it suggests that it does.

But in Gmail, what it did was it created eight folders

or labels, they call them in Gmail,

but eight folders call them.

One is to respond, one is FYI,

one is comment, one is notification,

one is meeting update, one is awaiting reply,

and one is actioned,

and then another one is marketing, right?

So obviously marketing is like all the random stuff.

I still have my rule on that says

if it's got the word unsubscribe in it,

put it in the unsubscribe folder

because I'll check that now and then.

And I actually think that's helping me

move things out of the way,

but then fixer is going,

if I'm getting a meeting invite, a meeting update,

those all go into one folder.

If they're things that's just information,

it's doing a pretty good job of putting them

in either notification or FYI,

but it's the to respond

that has been a game changer for me.

So an email comes in and says,

hey, we've got this product to review,

are you interested?

It'll do an amazing job of drafting a reply.

Now, my biggest challenge is I haven't

got my calendar synced to it.

Probably my calendars are still

on two different Google accounts,

so it really doesn't know my schedule.

So it is accepting, well, not accepting,

but it's saying I'm available now or whatever

and I'm not.

But it's tone of voice.

The way it's responding is so close to me.

I'm gonna say, and it's pure guesswork,

I reckon 50% of the time I just go send.

50% of the time I just send what it says.

The other 50%, well, let's drop it in two,

25% of the time I'm going changing some words

like the meeting time or it's suggested thing.

And the other 25%, I'm going,

it's definitely an email I need to respond to,

but let me take this one.

You know what I mean?

So it's doing a great job of working out

what I need to respond to.

And then as soon as I respond,

it takes it out of that label

and puts it into the action

or a waiting reply based on what I say.

So if I look in my awaiting reply folder now,

I can see a bunch of emails that I've sent

in the last kind of week or so.

And I can look through that and go,

why hasn't anyone responded to that?

Or I can click on them and go,

that actually doesn't need reply,

we're all good.

But man, I don't know.

I feel like I'm sitting here

less looking at an inbox full of things I need to do

and more looking at an invoice

of things that I'm actually working on.

Yeah.

Huge.

Yeah, that's right.

Worth a trial is what I'd say.

Worth a trial.

Yeah.

So Trevor, one of the questions I did have

because I have sort of looked at,

I had heard of Fixer and had a bit of a look,

but does it like if you don't reply

to a message say over a week or two,

will it sort of bring it back up?

Sort of like lazy Susan, as I call it,

sort of bring it back in front of you

to get your attention again.

Because that's one of my challenges is,

if I haven't followed up with something,

is bringing it back into my consciousness.

So does it do that or?

There's definitely some movement of things

around the folders, I would say.

Yeah.

I'll be honest with you,

my inbox has never been so clean.

So I don't know.

So maybe yeah, maybe you don't need it,

because it's, yeah.

I know right now there's four emails in draft

and the good thing is drafts is always visible

and it's always bold if you've got drafts in there.

There's four emails in there.

Look, one of them is about a kitchen appliance.

My wife's got to pick which one she wants.

One of them is about something Steve

and I are going to do and talk about tomorrow.

Fine.

One of them is also something I've got to talk

to Stephen about and work out.

And the other one, I haven't replied

because it came through 30 minutes ago

and I actually need to work out what weather things are

that they're asking me about.

So I'm kind of super on top of,

the oldest non-replied reply is October 24,

which is at the data recording only four days ago.

And there's only four messages.

Four messages that I am kind of in pending mode on.

Are we at a slow time of year

and am I bamboozling myself with potentially

something that's going to be harder

when it gets really busy?

I don't know.

Do I still fear missing something?

Yes.

So I feel like I'm clicking around the folders

a little bit going, am I missing something?

Have I missed any emails?

You know, I'm feeling kind of weird about that.

Like I've created a new rule for channel nine.

So I got to work a channel nine,

but if I get asked to do something,

I'm going to, I want to get on that straight away.

So it actually stays in my inbox

with a big channel nine label line.

I'm kind of satisfied with that as being something

I don't want to fix a dealing with

because they're never going to be able to respond

to those things the way I would want.

Mate, I think your best bet is to give it a crack.

I think that it could be better.

There's definitely customizations

that could allow things like that.

But if you have existing rules,

it will allow them and work around them.

If you delete all your existing rules,

it'll take over everything.

Mate, give it a crack, man.

I'm blown away by it.

I said to both Scott and Daniel,

they were freelanced for me.

I said, listen, if you guys want it,

I'll pay for it because it's so good.

It's just well worth having in your life.

So yeah, I'm kind of all in at this point.

Yeah, yeah, no, okay.

So I run, I do some contract consultancy work

for an organization and I have my own business.

So I'm running kind of two email accounts.

So can you get it set up across multiple email accounts?

I don't know, because I live in Brit,

I live one, so I live one,

even I have multiple accounts, I have one inbox.

I find that it's the simplest way for me to operate.

Basically, I just haven't got the time

to log in and out of different things.

And in fact, that's why I've just migrated

over to one place now because I did have two

and I knew I was missing the odd thing there.

If I click on the harm,

just go into the dashboard for fixer

and go settings, no, platform, my organization,

email connected, connect another.

It says connect another Gmail.

So yeah.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure based on what I,

yeah, I'm pretty sure based on what I looked at there,

you can absolutely do multiple inboxes.

In fact, I've now learned because I've done that,

I've now learned I can connect my other calendar.

So this is gonna be interesting.

I'm now gonna remove one calendar

and add the other one that is my primary calendar.

And I wonder whether it will now know how I work.

I'm excited now because the one thing

it's been like, it'll propose times.

It's really good at proposing times for me.

But I'm like, dude, it's not gonna happen.

That's not a meeting time.

So if it can get better at that, it'll be even better.

So may give it a try, sign up to the trial,

see how you go and let me know, all right?

Yeah, no, you're convincing that.

I'm definitely gonna give it a go and see how it goes.

All right, buddy.

Thanks for getting in touch.

I'll hear from you soon.

All right, cheers.

Thanks, Trevor.

No worries at all.

Yeah, I mean, it's been a game changer for me.

And look, it's not for everyone, I get that.

But for someone who works for themselves.

So I think you're either,

you certainly don't have an assistant.

You're not someone that has an assistant.

You are managing a large chunk of email

and you do, I think, feel swallowed by email at times.

This definitely could be it.

F-Y-X-E-R, fixer, F-Y-X-E-R.

Give it a check if you're interested.

Tech, cars, lifestyle.

This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

Great to have you company.

Thank you for listening.

And if you need help, get in touch.

I'd love to hear from you.

Julie's on the line today, Julie.

Hello, Trevor.

How are you?

Hello, how can I help you?

Well, we are in the, well,

we were in the hunt for a new laptop.

Even though I can use computers very well

when it comes to buying one,

not to tech savvy with them.

And my husband and I, we were just talking about it.

And then the morning after,

when I was watching the morning show,

you just happened to be on there with laptops.

Is that called serendipity or something?

I mean, that must be it, surely.

Have you got a, what's your primary purpose

for this device?

That's the number one thing I think people

kind of get caught up in specs sometimes.

What are you using the laptop for?

Just emails.

Sometimes my husband's got to do some online stuff

with work.

That's it really.

We're not, you know, we're nearly 60

and it's purely just all personal stuff.

So basically you're in the browser a lot?

Yes.

You know, this is gonna sound crazy,

but one of the most amazing things

that I've realized in the last six months

is that you don't need Windows.

My kids both had Windows laptops for school

and they both broke them in the course of,

I don't know, about a year.

And I gave them both a Chromebook.

And I thought, oh, this is gonna be a nightmare.

They're gonna bag me for it.

They're gonna nag me and tell me

they need something different, whatever.

But you know what a Chromebook is?

It's the Google Chrome browser built into a computer.

And it just works.

It's honestly, it's so affordable

because they, you know, you're not paying

for the Windows license and all that stuff.

A Chromebook is very affordable.

You can get them for like $500.

Like literally a Lenovo, good brand HP,

ASUS, they all make Chromebooks

under $1,000 basically, right?

So just think for a minute about all the things you do.

If it happens in a browser, a Chromebook can do it.

If it's an external app,

so let's say you download Adobe Photoshop

or in my case Adobe Audition, the audio editor,

then no, you're probably gonna have to find a new way

of doing things on a Chromebook.

And you know what, let's not cross that bridge.

But if it really is just browser-based things,

then two questions, can you use a Chromebook,

would you mind?

And secondly, have you thought about getting a tablet?

Because a tablet, either iPad or Samsung,

depending on what ecosystem you live in,

buy a keyboard with it.

It's not only gonna do all the things you need

on your basic browsing and email and all that stuff,

but it's also gonna be portable

and it's gonna be your entertainment device

if you ever traveling or just wanna lie in bed

and watch a Netflix show.

Yeah, okay.

Well, we did actually only just purchased it last week

because when I saw you the morning after,

we ended up, so I did some searching

with the laptops.

We ended up getting that Bevo 15.

The Asus.

Yes.

I've still got it right here behind me.

They want it back, but I haven't put it in the box yet.

So that's the one we ended up getting.

It's a nice big device too.

What'd you pay for it?

Harvey Norman had them on special for 850.

Hey, great price.

Great price.

So you got Windows 11, you got a nice big screen.

It's an Asus, so it's gonna be reliable.

Is it doing everything you want it to do?

Well, I'm actually in a state at the moment visiting,

so I haven't taken it out of the box yet.

I will when I get home on Friday.

But then I thought, well-

What's the number one thing you install

on a brand new computer?

What's the one thing you install?

The number one thing.

I have no idea.

Antivirus internet security software.

Well, that's what I, then I thought,

well, I've got this laptop.

Do I need any extra antivirus or malware?

So then I do all that.

Yes, definitely.

So that was my next question to you.

So, and then when I Googled it, it said,

no, you do not with that laptop

because the inbuilt one it comes with is enough.

Well, look, Windows has a level of defense built in.

Great, awesome.

Excellent.

And the laptop may also have a trial version

of a particular software on it.

It might have McAfee or it might have Norton

or something like that.

Don't, don't be swayed by what's on it.

Do your own research.

Look, the bottom line is

I've had a long-term relationship with Trend Micro.

I think it's a great software.

You can get a Trend Micro license

that covers your laptop and your phones

and any tablets you've got

because you should have internet security software

on all your devices to keep you safe

from scam, text messages,

from things that are,

it's actually more you that's the problem

than viruses these days

because you're the one that's gonna click

in a link that you shouldn't,

things like that.

So whatever's on the computer,

make your decision beforehand,

but whatever's on the computer

doesn't have to be what you use.

You can uninstall existing software

and you can download Trend Micro, for example,

or you might choose Norton or McAfee,

but whatever you choose,

get it on that thing first and foremost

and work your way around from there.

How's it spelled the one you were just saying?

Trend as in, you know, Trendy,

Trend, TRE, ND, Micro as in Microsoft.

Trend Micro.

Right, so do I have to purchase it

or just download it?

Yeah, so just go to their website,

buy a license

and what you should do is buy a license

for multi-device.

You'll probably pay

between $100 and $150 a year.

You want one that does maybe three devices,

maybe five, depending on how many things you own.

And once you've got it,

install it on your phone

and then download it on the computer,

install it on there

and you're off to the races.

Right, okay.

Well, that's very handy to know.

No worries at all.

Enjoy the new computer.

Thank you so much, Trevor.

My pleasure.

Good luck.

Okay, bye-bye.

Cheers.

There you go.

It was a few weeks ago

at the time we're recording,

a few weeks ago that I did that segment.

So she's obviously rushed out

and got that new laptop,

but hasn't opened it yet.

So we still got some good advice in there

to make sure that she doesn't come at risk

with that brand new laptop in her life.

You're listening to the EFTM podcast.

You can text Trev now

thanks to Vodafone on 047-657-657.

Great, happy company.

Happy to help wherever I can,

whenever I can just get in touch.

You heard the number.

We can go to EFTM.com.

Leonard's on the line today, mate.

Yes.

Hi, how are you doing?

Yeah, really good.

What can I do for you?

Look, I live on 5-8

because I've got a security system

and an old Arlo security system.

Yep.

How old?

Like the OG style?

I've got the ones

that you used to put the camera batteries in.

Oh, no.

You mean the little,

what are they called,

A123s or something?

Yeah, something like that.

The little three volt things.

Yeah, expensive.

Like it's worth it.

But then I updated to the Arlo Pro

a few years ago now.

And then Arlo obviously

have found their updates and stuff

and pretty much cut out all the stuff

for the older cameras,

all the recording and stuff like that.

So my question was,

I live in five acres

and I need to.

We've got people coming around the streets now.

We're in a small country town in New South Wales.

And there's now people, obviously,

because life's pretty tough at the moment,

but people stalking our houses.

Yeah, gotcha.

So let's put it simply.

The locations you have the Arlo cameras,

are they not far enough away?

Like do you want them to put them in the same spots

or different spots?

Well, either I or,

sort of, I can move them around.

That's not a drama.

And I can either go,

I've got just,

I started checking out the,

my, what do you call them?

The spotlights on the house.

I'm there a bit dodgy as well.

So I can either do a bit,

I can either do wired or unwired.

But I'm just sort of,

you know, you look at all those reviews and stuff online.

And depending on which review you read,

depends on which one they say is better.

Obviously, because one of the challenges is there's like,

I've got a camera.

I think I can tell you about like you need.

And yesterday gave me a new camera,

which, which has the ability to

try to describe it now.

It's this, it's this feature where it takes continuously,

kind of like a dash cam.

It's continuously recording,

but at two frames per second.

And then once it detects motion,

it goes up to, you know,

25 frames per second or whatever it might be.

And so you kind of always getting very close

to capturing that moment before it happens.

And that's like, I've never heard of that before.

So right now I'm pretty,

pretty jazzed about how exciting that is as a feature.

But it's one feature of a camera

that might not have other features

that, you know, a Swann or an Arlo has.

So it is challenging.

You're right, 100%.

And these new ones that you're talking about,

I actually bumped into a dude in,

in town and I was talking to one of the shop reps

who didn't know much about security cameras.

And I just heard this voice from over, over, over the aisle.

And he brought me up to these next text from Jaycar.

Yeah, I'm telling you right now, I'm, I'm not in on them.

And I'll tell you why,

if they're not being sold at Harvey Normans' JBI files,

I'm very worried about them.

Because it means they're probably, they're probably just some,

so here's how it works.

If you, if you wanted to start a business today,

you could fly to China.

You could find the factories that make security cameras

and you could do a deal

to make a thousand security cameras

with whatever brand you want

and you could bring them into Australia.

I see them advertised on TikTok all the time.

And this is a completely weirdly unrelated example.

But I, I have these EFTM umbrellas, right?

And I wanted to get new ones,

but I wanted to be a bit fanciful.

I want to design them differently.

And everyone I went to in Australia was like,

I can only do this, this and this.

Mate, it took me a week to find a factory in China

that not only were happy with my design,

but within a week sent me a sample made to my,

made to the network.

And I've got, I've got 200 of these things

landing this week.

And it's costing me almost,

almost half of what I would have paid

if I went with a boring design that I used to do.

So honestly, anyone can go to China and find a product.

And the thing is, is it safe?

Is it secure?

Does it comply with Australian standards?

Will you get your money back?

Do they have return policies?

A lot of things that basically the big retailers check off

before they range them in their stores.

But I'd go back to your first point

where you said you could go wide or wireless.

And I'd say to you this,

if I had the choice at home

to go wide or wireless,

I'd go wide every day of the week,

every day of the week for two reasons.

One, no battery anxiety at all.

The Arlo floodlight that I've got,

which is a wired Wi-Fi camera.

So it's wired for power,

but operates via Wi-Fi to send video, right?

That's a game changer for me

because I never have to,

that's at the front of the house.

Even if every other camera went flat

because I was lazy,

that one's always gonna be on, right?

I love it.

So that to me, power is a huge thing.

But secondly, if you can go fully wired,

so if you could run an ethernet cord

to each corner of the house

and put in actual CCTV style security cameras.

So here in my office,

I've got a swan system with wired cameras

and they are constantly recording.

So I can scrub back through the hard drive

and in real time,

I can look up at a screen and see the cameras as well,

which I think is very cool.

I can scrub back through the vision with ease.

There's no cloud, there's none of that.

So if I was starting from scratch

and I could go fully wired,

I would 100% run ethernet cables

to every corner of the house and the front door.

And that's where I'd put my cameras

with a CCTV network recording system.

Not cheap, but also probably on par

with a wireless system.

But second tier to that would be having power available

to each camera through a Sparky,

installing them into actually hard-wired power.

And third to that is mate,

any of the wireless systems are amazing.

The only one to look at as a bit of a standout

is the swan MaxRanger system

because it does give you more distance.

So you can have these things 600 meters away.

Oh, righto, that's good to know.

Swan, hang on, I'm just gonna grab a pen.

Swan MaxRanger, my brother lives in Leighton

because there's no point in me reviewing it here in Sydney.

And my brother took it to his partner's place

as quite a big property.

He took it as far as he could go,

put it on the back fence and looking

like over the whole backyard,

probably, I don't know, an acre,

looking at the house, no problems at all.

So you could do something very,

because it's solar powered as well.

Solar battery, it's constantly charging,

never need to touch it.

And you got 600 meters of range.

That's, yeah, that's a game changer actually.

Yeah, buddy, have a look at some reviews

of the Swan MaxRanger.

There's two MaxRangers, one that's 600 meters,

one that's 300 meters, depending on what you need.

It could be a game changer for you.

No, that's good.

I was looking at, I know Swan had some big sails on recently

and I was looking at them.

The other thing is, mate, hold off three or four weeks.

You've got Black Friday coming up, mate.

Have we?

Yeah, Black Friday is mid to late November.

So think 25th of November onwards, they're around there.

There's going to be great deals.

All right, no, that's good to know.

Yeah, being retired, just sort of.

Forget all that sort of stuff, so.

Yeah, well, mate, good luck.

Let me know where you end up buying, all right?

Hey, thank you, well-done.

Cheers, Trev.

My pleasure, mate, any time, good on you.

So much to think about when it comes to security cameras.

It's really not as easy as this brand better than that one.

It does depend on you and what you need and want.

Excuse me, from the camera system.

It's very, very variable.

Well, let us know what you think.

Let us know what you've got.

Let us know about your security cameras.

I'd love to hear about any brand.

It doesn't worry me at all.

Tech, cars, lifestyle.

This is the EFTM podcast with Trev along.

Well, break-ins and aggravated burglars concern us all.

But what if you could prevent these crimes before

they happen?

SWAN has been a trusted name in security for over 35 years

and their max range of 4K long range wireless cameras

can help keep any Australian home safe.

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these use a new Wi-Fi technology with a stronger signal

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And they can transmit further

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Visit your SWAN reseller or swan.com.

That's SWAN.com, the max range of 4K.

It's the strongest wireless for maximum home security

from SWAN.

Helping Australians with tech in over 15 years,

the EFTM podcast with Trev along.

Great heavy company, happy to help you

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get in touch, send me a text thanks to Vodafone

0447657657, Ben's on the line.

Good day, Ben.

Good day, Trevor.

What can I do for you, mate?

Mate, I bought a ring doorbell.

It was about six years ago.

Well, they told me it was six years ago.

And about a month ago, I was still working

and I called the customer support.

So like if someone presses the doorbell,

it wouldn't even ring.

Nah, it says it's online, but it's not online.

You can't get a live view.

You can't do anything with it.

So I did call them up and they said that,

yeah, because there was a firmware update,

it's now obsolete.

And that I had to,

I said, I said, right, the best they could do,

even after going through to a supervisor

was 35% discount on a new one.

But they just said, no, it's obsolete.

Yeah, but I do a five-finger discount on a new one,

you muggers.

What the hell?

Yeah, I was gonna give them the one-finger discount,

but things change.

I mean, you know, there's updates, whatnot,

but what a firmware update should do

to a six-year-old device is, you know, keep it secure.

I wouldn't expect any new features, right?

I certainly wouldn't expect any additions to the thing,

but if it's been working well,

there's no reason why it wouldn't.

So was this an online chat or a phone chat?

It was a phone chat.

And, you know, exactly agree, Trev,

like the hardware is fine.

And this was my point that I couldn't sort of,

they didn't understand or didn't take on board.

Like the hardware is fine.

I've kept it, you know, in a good area

where it's out of the sun.

It's, you know, perfectly fine.

I said, no, no, it's just that the firmware is, you know,

it's updated and now it's obsolete.

Wow.

I'm reading, I'm looking on Reddit.

There's a few people, this is from a couple of years ago,

though, people saying that.

So this is only a recent one for you, though.

Yeah, it only happened a bit a month ago.

Yeah, I couldn't figure it out.

I kept trying to reset it, trying to do everything

and just everything I did that said it was online

and it just wasn't online.

I couldn't go to live use.

People would ding it, like you could press a button

but it wouldn't actually make any noise

or go to camera or anything, so.

What's your home security situation like generally

other than the doorbell?

Ah, that's it.

That's it, no, it's not necessary to get that away.

But yes, no, that's it.

So, I mean, where's your head at with Ring then?

Because obviously there's a couple of scenarios here.

You take the discount and you buy something new from Ring

or you go, you know, what big middle finger?

I'm going somewhere else.

Well, I sort of thought of that.

I'm subbed up with them

and that's the other annoying part I saw on the sub.

Oh, you're paying this description?

Yeah, exactly, right.

And it doesn't, you know, I don't have the hard,

I have the hardware, but the hardware's now not working.

So, yeah, unfortunately it was a good product

when it did work and well, fortunately or unfortunately

and I'm tipping as much as I had to say it,

I'll take the 35% and I'll grab another one.

But it's, well, I'm gonna, let's pretend it's a game show.

I'm gonna give you two options, okay?

Well, you got three options.

You got three options.

I do like watching Tipping Point in the afternoon.

So, this is your chance at the jackpot round, right?

So, you got three options.

Mate, that's crap, I think it's crap

and good luck buying a new one 30% off, well done.

And you keep your subscription.

Second option, I ring the people at Swan

who are sponsors of this podcast

and I say, this plug's been absolutely screwed over by Ring.

Can we send him a doorbell?

My guess, my guess, they say yes.

It's not a guarantee, that's my guess.

Third option is I get in touch with the people at Ring

and I say, can you ever listen to this for a minute

and tell me whether this is right?

And they'll say, like, they'll just automatically,

I think say, look, this is that and this is the what not

but let's send him a new doorbell.

Like, that's probably the outcome

from me getting in touch with him.

So, you got three options, mate.

Which door do you want to walk through?

Let's go to option two in the finger.

I love it.

I love them because there's spite in that

and I do operate in about 20% of my body operates on spite.

Because the part of that is,

and this is a customer loyalty question, right?

You've been a loyal customer for six years.

You're on a subscription,

you're paying them regularly for what they do.

Yeah.

And they've repaid that loyalty with bricking a product

and a very tokenistic gesture.

Now, I'm not suggesting by any way, shape or form,

that you should be covered by Australian Consumer Law,

although it would be an interesting fight to fight.

I did make that point and the course leader was overseas

and I don't think they sort of had any proofs

based on the recognition of what it was.

And it also took me an hour to get to that point

where they just said, nothing we can do,

like that's the best we can do.

That's crap.

Well, look, here's what we'll do.

The good news is door two is not a guarantee.

If it doesn't work, you can walk back out

and we'll go door three.

All right, so let's first try Swann.

I'd love you to try their AI doorbell.

Look, it's great doorbell on its own,

video doorbell, all that kind of stuff.

The AI stuff is not yet like perfect,

but it's pretty amazing.

So it's pretty amazing.

So the way it works is you,

and I tested this at home, you set it up

and in the app, you type what you might want it

to know about your place.

So for example, where would you leave a package?

Well, what I say is I would leave the package

down to the left of the door on the shoe rack.

We've got a shoe rack at the door.

Often that's what I'll say.

And so you can teach the doorbell these things

and it uses like a chat GBT style AI.

So if someone's there, they press the doorbell

and it's between the hours of like your work hours.

It'll answer for you in a human voice.

It'll say, hi, can I help you?

And the person will say, I've got a parcel.

And it will go, it'll take a couple of seconds.

It'll go, okay, it said parcel.

Okay, thanks very much.

Leave it down there on the left near the shoe rack.

So it's not a pre-programmed response.

It's an AI generated response.

So cool.

And as I said, there's this weird delay

the stuff that goes on.

I'm sure that's going to improve over time.

But if I can get you on,

I'd love to hear back from you about what you think of it.

Based on your experience of doorbells generally as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that'd be great.

All right, well, look, I think I did.

How did we communicate?

Text or email to get this call happening?

Either off email.

Yeah, I think I'm sort of giving you.

However I lined up this call,

whether it was text or email,

reply to me with all your details,

address and all that kind of stuff.

And I will get in touch with Swan in the next 24 hours

and have that conversation

to see what we're going to arrange for you, okay?

Mate, that's awesome.

Thanks very much, Trevor.

My pleasure, buddy.

I'll be in touch.

Righto, say it easy.

Cheers, mate.

Thank you.

There you go.

Like that is, I'm a little bit blown away by that.

Look, software updates don't always go perfectly.

But for it to brick the device,

I get the idea of you not getting new features.

Like, you know, you got an iPhone 9,

iPhone 8, there's no iPhone 9.

iPhone 8, you don't get iOS 26.

So you don't get liquid glass.

You don't get, that's not a feature, that's a look.

But any new feature, call screening,

there's a feature of new iOS.

You don't get that on an older phone

because you don't get the update.

So fine, but you don't,

your phone doesn't stop working.

In fact, you could put a new battery in that phone

and it will work better than ever.

You just don't get the latest software.

I'm blown away by that.

Even though we're walking through door two,

I'm still gonna send this to Ring

because I think they probably need to look

at how that happened

because it's pretty disappointing.

Customer service and product support.

Anyway, let us know if that's happened to you

on any products

because I don't think it should happen at all.

The EFTM podcast, thanks to SWAN,

Home Security to Connect, Detect and Protect.

Great to have you company.

And if you want to be on the show,

you know how to do it, EFTM.com is the place to go.

Phil's on the line today, Phil.

Good night, Trevor.

What can I do for you, mate?

Just looking to update two mobiles

now that Black Friday's coming up.

I just thought, best time to maybe look.

We've been using different brands over the years,

my wife and I,

and we're finding we're sort of out growing them

with speed-wise and that sort of performance-wise, probably.

So she's had a Motorola G34.

I've had a Motorola G84.

We've tried Oppos in the past

and I can't convince her to go to iPhones.

She's an anti-Apple operating system.

Fair enough.

Just can't seem to get her head around it.

So we were looking, just started to look

and I heard you talking about Nothing 3A.

Oh, yeah, nice one.

256, I was thinking going that way

and she's all, she had a Samsung a number of years ago

and like that, so I was thinking maybe Samsung A56, 256 for her.

You know why I'm laughing?

I...

Yeah, because...

No, no, no, it's hilarious.

I'm deep in EFTM magazine planning right now.

So we've got an event on Thursday night

where all the marketing PR people come to

and we launch the magazine, we show them the magazine

and then probably, I hope by the 20th,

it'll be in the post to everyone who I have their addresses for.

Looking forward to receiving it, too.

And look, I hate to spoiler alerts here,

but the Nothing 3A does feature a mention

in the Best Smartphone Awards as does the A56.

So I'd be mad to not say you've picked two great phones.

Honestly, great phones.

The Samsung is, I think it's a sleeper.

You know, it's a bit pricey.

It nears up to $1,000, but on discount,

it's probably $800 or something these days.

Yes, no dollar outs.

You might get it even cheaper around Black Friday.

Does it have the best camera in the world?

No, does it have a great camera?

Yes.

So, you know, it's got what you need.

It's certainly going to be better than what you've had

by the sounds of it.

So, camera-wise, they're going to be better than the Motorola's?

Um, look, I think so.

The Motorola's you had were more the $500 price point from memory?

Yeah, around about $400, $300 to $400,

depending on when you bought them.

So, a category lower.

The Nothing 3A, so my son uses that.

Now, I upgraded him to the 3,

and he said there's a noticeable difference in the camera.

Now, the 3 is a much more expensive phone.

Yeah.

But for the money, I think the 3A is bang on in terms of camera.

It's got Zoom, got UltraWide,

got all those things, great battery life too.

No, that's nothing.

We're going overseas next year,

and that's what we really want them for,

photography and that sort of thing.

And also, I run a small, I'm retired,

but I run a small business with a few friends.

We auction Rusty, I'll motorcycle parts,

so we're taking photos of those

and then uploading them to an auction platform

and doing that sort of thing.

The thing about that, which is a really interesting thing to note,

the Nothing 3A does not support eSIM.

So, when you travel, you will need a physical SIM card

when you're overseas.

You either need to roam with your Australian network,

which is totally cool, especially if you're with Vodafone.

Best deals you'll get for roaming.

Yeah, we're probably going for two months,

so that's going to get a bit pricey.

Yeah, mate, life gets pricey.

So, it's a trip.

Are you going to multiple countries or just one area?

Starting in Ireland and heading to Italy

and then back again to leave from Ireland again.

So, yeah, multiple countries.

We're just saying to everybody use WhatsApp.

Mate, that's a great plan.

It's a totally great plan.

Plus, grab an eSIM on the wife's phone

just for backup sake.

There's an app called Airolo, A-I-R-A-L-O,

which you install.

Yeah, we tried that in New Zealand.

Yeah.

How'd it go?

Yeah, not too bad.

Yeah, it was good.

Yeah.

Once you get there, the installation was a little bit tricky,

that's all.

Yeah, first time it's a learning exercise.

Use the promo code EFTM, you'll get 10% off.

Yeah, well, I did it on your recommendation last night

because I listen to you guys all the time.

Yeah, well, good news.

They've now done a promo code for me

so you can get 10% off.

And the great thing is that Ireland to Italy,

in the world of telco, not the world of trade,

it's still just Europe.

Oh, right, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm pretty confident one SIM card will work everywhere.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Even though there's the Brexit,

it actually hasn't affected the mobile network.

So you'll probably be able to use the Irish SIM card in Italy.

I think you'll be fine.

Just do a quick bit of research on that beforehand,

but I think you'll be fine.

So if I just walk into a retailer in Ireland

and just say I want a SIM card with, you know...

For your phone?

Yes.

If you needed to do that for your phone, totally fine.

If you just wanted to do what you said,

you know, use Wi-Fi in the hotels and cafes

and maybe get an e-SIM like AeroLo on the wife's phone,

then yeah, you just need to do one in Ireland

and you're good for the rest of the way.

So a couple of great phones, mate.

I can't guarantee you they're going to be on a great deal

for Black Friday, but my guess is...

No, well, that's a gamble, isn't it?

But yeah, we've just been waiting.

They're not going to be more than an hour now.

Put it that way.

True enough, true enough.

Although, Jamie, Wi-Fi right now,

8.56 is 6.99.

Okay.

Right, like today at the point of recording, I mean...

Right, and nothing I looked at last time was about 5.89.

Nothing 3...

What do you say, the 3A?

No, that's the...

Yeah, 3A256.

3A, I'm thinking...

I'm just looking here.

Yeah, the 128 was 5.29

and then the 2.56 was 5.89,

so I thought it was 60 bucks well spent.

Yeah, 7.49 for the 2.56 at the moment.

Okay, they bumped it back up in the last few days.

Yeah, what did you say the 128 was?

5.29.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

That was on the 5th...

That makes sense, because I had it in the under $600 category,

so I was kind of thinking, oh, no, what's happening here?

It's interesting.

Stop the printer.

I can't do that now, it's already printed.

It's strange, I'm actually...

I'm looking at the JB Hi-Fi website.

I reckon they've put the wrong image

against one of the phones,

because I looked at it and I went,

that's not a 3A, it's got different cameras.

Oh, 3A Pro is what I was looking at.

The 2.56 is 7.49, 3A Pro.

There's so many nothings now.

The standard 3A256 is 5.89.

Yeah, that's the one, yeah, okay.

So that's the one I was looking at.

That's the one you want.

The difference in speed between those and the motor rollers

with apps starting up and phones starting up

and that sort of thing?

I think so.

I don't know that it's going to be out of your pocket noticeable

and crazy.

Okay.

But I think you'll be impressed.

I think you'll be impressed by both the screen

and the speed of the nothing.

And on the Samsung, just the overall consistency of the device.

Yep, fantastic, already.

Well, good luck.

Happy shopping.

I'm catching up on some old...

Just one thing, I'm catching up on some old episodes

of yours, so I was listening to your fellow from Cricut yesterday.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, man, you missed one very important thing

than a Cricut machine will do.

It'll cut gaskets for vintage motorcycles.

Really?

That should have been...

What material do you put in it?

It's just cardboard, like an old resistant cardboard.

And that's the thing, is it, people?

So, because you think about it, it's like,

remember when 3D printers came out, they were like,

oh, you'll be able to print the dial for an oven

or, you know, just parts.

And you think about it, why on earth would anyone stock gaskets

for a car or a bike that is, you know, 40, 50, 60 years old

when you can have just the card stock

and then just here print?

Yeah, well, I've got a...

I'm building a library now because I've got mates.

Well, at least I'm talking about 1910s to 30s bikes,

you know, so no one wants to know about them,

so that's really good.

So do you use that card stock and then you print them on demand?

Yep.

Yeah, buy it in bulk.

And yeah, just for mates, you know,

if I don't like someone, you don't get one.

How did you discover that was possible?

A fellow in America was doing it for Husqvarna chainsaws

and someone said, you've got to watch this guy.

It's a screen because he was talking about his wife

being the little woman prints them.

Okay, wow, yep.

And the little woman wasn't little.

A lovely girl, but yes.

But yes, she just printed out his woman things like that.

So the only issue I do have is when I scan...

What I do is I scan them, you know, just my normal flatbed scanner.

I was going to say, how do you know, how do you match it?

Yeah, I scan them and then I plot over the top using Onshape

and then go from there.

The only problem I have is that scanners do not scan at 100%.

Yeah, so you've got to really match up the dimensions.

Yeah, so I printed out, look at where it...

It's usually one or two percent smaller

and then I just enlarge the image by one or two percent,

print it out again and just make sure it matches

and then if I go plot from there,

but why don't scanners print, you know, copy at 100%?

That's what I can't figure.

I'm on YouTube watching a bloke called Rusty Machine Co.

Print a huge gasket for, I don't know,

what might be a petrol tank or something, but it's large.

And I'm just like, there's unbelievable.

That is even a thing.

Look at that.

You know, the crickets you can do 30 by 60,

which is, yeah, pretty good.

I did run for a fellow the other day.

He's got a modern bike, 1970s, home to four.

And that one was a little bit more challenging.

It was printed out of a lot...

It was called Blackmar, which is quite a bit thicker

and it didn't cut 100% through, but it cut 90%,

sort of 8% through and it was easy to tear out after that

and it was fine.

He was wrapped.

I'm sending this to the people at Cricket.

They'll be blown away.

They'll probably know about it, but I still think it's amazing.

I'd say so, yeah, they probably do,

but yeah, not a problem.

It's really, really, really well.

Every day's a school day.

I find that when I listen to you and Mr. French.

Good on you.

Well said.

Well said, Phil.

Good on you, mate.

Thanks for getting a touch.

Thanks, Trevor.

Cheers, mate.

Happy shopping.

Cheers.

Who knew?

Look at that.

Wow.

You can print and cut, or you can cut a gasket with a Cricket.

You'll learn something new every day.

The EFTM podcast, thanks to SWAN, home security to connect,

detect and protect.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for downloading.

Please look out for the magazine and put your name on the list

if you haven't got it already.

And please, when you get the magazine later this month,

take a photo, share it on your Instagram story,

share it on Instagram or TikTok stories,

just so I can share the love.

I'll try and reshare everyone that gets it.

You don't have to put yourself in it.

Just show a photo of the magazine in your hand

on the lounge, on the coffee table, whatever.

I just want to get that sense that it made

the people's homes.

That's what I want.

So I look forward to those things later this month.

We've got a lot to do, a lot going on.

I'm looking forward to getting through this week

so I can then just bunker down and focus on the end of the year,

get some more articles written and start planning for next year

because CES is just like nine or so weeks away.

Maybe 10.

Not many.

Well, we're off soon.

Looking forward to that one once again.

Thanks for listening, folks.

Let's do it all again real soon.

This is the EFTM podcast.

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