Tech Table Radio Show

Tech Table
Tuesday, November 19, 2013

November 19, 2013

Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.

Diana: And I’m Diana.

Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.

Diana: We promise it’ll be easy to digest.

Diana: Howdy!

Justin: Hey Diana. It is Tuesday.

Diana: Yeah, I’m feeling good today.

Justin: So I’m trying to wake up clearly.

Diana: Wake up!

Justin: Yeah. It’s Tech Tuesday, so we talk about something tech related. What do we have today?

Diana: Oh let’s see, well the temperature is dropping unfortunately, it’s that time of year.

Justin: It is, it’s getting cold.

Diana: Although we had some good temperatures I think recently but, yeah, it’s getting cold. So technology, we can’t leave in extreme temperatures, including extreme cold, so we’re just going to talk a little bit today about when the temperature drops, what we should do.

Justin: Right, right. So what should we do?

Diana: Well, we shouldn’t leave things, like in the car, or where they’re exposed to those extreme cold temperatures.

Justin: Right, so like laptops, iPods, right? Cell phones, you know any device basically, it’s not good for it to be in the cold. You also shouldn’t put in the microwave, but that’s a whole other story. Yeah, so the two biggest things that get damaged are the screens since most a liquid crystal displays.

Diana: Ah yes, LCD.

Justin: LCD. Liquid Crystal Display, if you didn’t know that, that’s what LCD means. And batteries, because they are lithium ion.

Diana: Right, so, and the cold temperatures can actually freeze the screens and cause them to turn white or become very pixelated.

Justin: Oh wow, yeah, that’s not fun. So, cold can ruin those lithium, the lithium in batteries causing them to no longer charge.

Diana: That’s not good and we struggle enough to keep our devices charged.

Justin: Yeah we do.

Diana: We don’t need to be ruining the batteries.

Justin: Absolutely, yeah. So what is the best temperature for your devices?

Diana: Well, you know, it’s like a lot of things, kind of a nice, middle of the road 50-80 degrees, so you do have a range there that you can keep your devices in, but you don’t want it to be in less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit, or more than 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Justin: Sure, so not heat either. I mean that’s a valid point too.

Diana: Yeah.

Justin: And they used to, back when I was young, back in the day.

Diana: Oh you’re still young.

Justin: Oh I know, they used to say don’t leave CDs, don’t leave your Disc-man, remember those things, back in the day.

Diana: Medications.

Justin: Yeah, remember those things, in the heat. So you shouldn’t leave anything in the cold or the heat, 50 to 80 degrees is pretty much the best temperature for all of your devices to stay at and you know it’s kind of interesting, because even some hot, you know, if you have a computer in an office on a farm, but it’s like an office in a building, you know like a [unclear] or something like that, you have to think about that too with the temperature. I’ve seen some computers in cold environments that don’t perform as well. They don’t have a long life because they’re either too cold or too hot because they’re not in a temperature controlled building.

Diana: Right.

Justin: Unfortunately there aren’t any real special insulated cases or anything.

Diana: Right, you can buy cases, oh like, I have a make up case, I know, this is totally not something you would normally go, but it’s insulated, or for your meals, lunch bags and things have insulation to protect it from different temperatures, but there really aren’t anything for your tech devices.

Justin: Interesting, interesting. You’d think they’d come up with something.

Diana: You would think.

Justin: Maybe there’s your gold mine, Diana.

Diana: Yeah.

Justin: Yeah, interesting. So, yeah for extreme cases that you have to use devices in the freezing cold, they do make weather appropriate devices for instance, but those are very expensive.

Diana: Right.

Justin: Those are specialized industry sort of devices, so. Yeah, so keep your tech with you and stay in the warm.

Diana: Yeah.

Justin: Alright, well, until next time.

Diana: Take care.

Justin: Tech Table is brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at askmpa.com.

Diana: If you have questions or comments, please send them to questions@askmpa.com. That’s questions@askmpa.com.

Justin: And thanks for listening.