Guest panelist Don Sorcinelli joins Jon Westfall and me for this podcast. We discussed:

1. Windy.com animated wind information site.
2. Ref: FiveThirtyEight. If Waffle House Is Closed, It’s Time To Panic
3. Amazon lowering Whole Foods prices, Prime member discounts, & more. NPR
4. GIMP 2.9.6 released. This used to be important news to me because good bitmap graphic tools used to be expensive and relatively scarce (because of price). However, graphic tools are now cheap and plentiful on the iPad.
5. Bitcoin Energy Consumption
6. Crashplan exits the home market, irks Jon and others. Jon’s plan: Build a NAS
7. Starting to consider buying iPhone 8 / Apple Watch 3

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

Jon Westfall is back. In this podcast, we discuss:

1. Facebook Draw.io. Free web-based diagram tool that can save to a number of cloud services as well as your local device. Ref: Facebook
2. Tunnel Bear VPN public security audit
3. Firefox Focus for iOS & Android. “Instead of every beta bell and whistle, Focus has only one screen; a min amt of btns; no stored passwords or bandwidth hogging; and won’t remember your history. Focus also blocks third-party trackers automatically, giving you a faster and more private mobile search and browsing experience by default.”
4. Google Home. Free calls in US/Canada. Now $109. Down from $129.
5. Android O. (Oreo?) event on total eclipse day, Aug. 24. Ref: Android Police. Google Android Eclipse web page

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6. Jon’s Tech Discussion: Could you go without data on your smartphone (e.g., no cellular data, just wifi)
7. Jon’s Sad Tech Tale: Starcraft Remastered ($15)

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

In this podcast, I’m joined by Ricky Li and Ryan Ozawa for a second all-Hawaii panel. They revisit the Gnarbox and Google Fi before moving on to discuss Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index, the new SEA-US undersea cable to Hawaii, Google warning well-known mainstream websites about annoying advertisements, and Apple iPhone and Watch speculation.

1. New Speedtest Global Index. Ref: Speedtest Blog. US #46 and falling in mobile ranking. #9 and holding steady in fixed broadband.
2. New undersea cable SEA-US
3. Google warning sites with annoying advertisements. Ref: Advertising Age
4. Ricky’s Google Fi experience and learned hacks after his first week with the service.
5. iOS beta woes
   iPhone Pro?
   Apple Watch 4?

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

1. More on the Blue Yeti microphone adventure
2. Ref: Business Insider
3. Google Newspaper Archive
4. Sprint wants to merge with Charter Ref: ars technica. Charter? Not so much.
5. Death of MS Paint?
   Todd’s advice: Use Paint.net
6. Back to school shopping time means: GREAT deals on stuff to organize your tech

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.