PCM24 – We Need Faster Speeds for Cable Internet! (And It’s Here…)

Whether streaming media, working from home, both, or more, when it comes to Internet bandwidth and speeds, we always seem to need more, more, more!

Providers are starting to deliver, too.

Take Comcast. The cable/Internet giant is rolling out new offerings that deliver up to a whopping 2GB per second of upland and download speed.

In no-geek-speak terms, that means insanely fast. To give you an idea of just how fast, this story the Washington Post did last year says the fastest average speeds in the United States was 29MB per second  (of course, that was waayyyyy back in January, 2014).

Comcast’s Michelle Gilbert, vice president public relations, Comcast Cable Heartland Region, joins PC Mike for this episode of the PC Mike podcast to talk about the need for even faster Internet connections and using Comcast’s new offerings to give you an idea of what’s out there – or what will soon be out there. [spp-timestamp time=”17:39″]

Also in this episode, PC Mike talks Amazon’s big fail, rising Netflix rates and Microsoft’s move to make it easier to get Windows apps.

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Tech News of the Week: Amazon’s Not-Prime Day, Netflix Rates Going Up, Microsoft Makes Getting Apps Easier

Amazon’s Not-So-Big Wednesday: Amazon promised sales that were better than Back Friday on this week’s Prime Day. The consensus online: Few real deals, lots of junk… a major fail (Read more) [spp-timestamp time=”2:00″]

Netflix to Boost Rates…Someday: Netflix is growing fast but so will subscription costs as it adds more original programming (Read more) [spp-timestamp time=”9:03″]

Microsoft Consolidates Online Stores: No more store confusion for Micrososft users. All the different Microsoft online shopping sites are being consolidated into one central site. (Read more) [spp-timestamp time=”11:46″]

App of the Week: Apps to Record, Save, and Share Phone Calls

Whether you’re just too busy to pay close attention – or have any other reasons – and want to record and save an important phone call for future reference, a number of apps can do it for you. Be sure and know your state law on recording phone calls – some have restrictions. We have three call recording apps to recommend.

Automatic Call Recorder allows users to simply record any or all calls. You can choose to save or delete calls in the app’s inbox – even add notes to calls and integration with Google Drive and Dropbox allows calls to be saved and synced to the cloud. The app is free for Android. A $6.99 pro version with additional features is available.

Clever Mobile’s Call Recorder allows users to record, play, and delete recorded phone calls. You set up where recordings are stored and can protect them with a password. The app is free for Android with a $5.99 pro version available.

For iPhone users, there’s TapeACall Pro. The app allows users to record calls already in progress or that are about to be made. Once the call is completed, recordings are instantly available and ready to be shared or saved. TapeACall Pro is $9.99 a year.

Check out the following link to see the PC Mike report for NBC-TV on call recorder apps: https://youtu.be/JOd4gdYRYLU

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Online Learning – Free Trial for PC Mike Listeners

I get asked a lot about finding online courses for learning how to use photography software such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom CC, which are both on my recently updated list of tech gear. I talk about how I benefited from taking online courses as well as a special deal available only to PC Mike Techcast listeners at pcmike.com/lynda, where you can even try it free for 10 days and see if online learning works as well for you as it has for me. By the way, they have more than 3,300 courses to pick from – including more than 100,000 video tutorials – in subjects ranging from photography, video and audio to graphic design and web development. With Lynda, you can get:

– Unlimited access to all 3,314 courses – more than 100,000 video tutorials
– Learn new software and stay up to date

Listeners of the PC Mike podcast can get a free 10-day trial. Try any course. Start your trial now and see what you can learn. Just go to https://pcmike.com/lynda to get the free 10 day trial.

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We Need Your Help!

As we begin a new podcast like this, it’s very important to get a bunch of reviews to be able to show well in the iTunes listings. So if you can, I’d sure appreciate it if you’d subscribe and leave me your rating and review.

Here’s how:

First, open up the iTunes app on your computer or mobile device. Click on Podcasts on top
> From the iTunes Podcasts page, use the “Search Store” field up at the top right corner of the page. Type in PC Mike Techcast under the Podcasts category.
> Click on the logo image of the PC Mike Techcast on the search return page
> From there, you can:

1) Subscribe

2) Choose and Click on a star (1-5) that reflects your rating. Five stars means you really like it, one star not so much.

3) Leave a written review.

Thanks to all for the kind reviews we’ve received so far. I read and appreciate every review! If you haven’t left a review please do so. I will be so grateful!

And remember, you can appear in future episodes. Ask a question or voice your comments by clicking the Leave Voicemail tab on the right side of this page here at pcmike.com. You can then use the microphone on your computer to record your question.

Thank you!

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