Budokai 3 vs Tenkaichi 3

It's quite a debate among fans about which of these two games is the better one. Recently TeamFourStar rated their own favorite Dragon Ball games and both Budokai 3 and Tenkaichi 3 were the favorites...

For TeamFourStar Budokai 3 ended up at the first place with Tenkaichi 3 as a close second. Personally I would have put it the other way around, but I can understand their rating for that order.

The general thing about Tenkaichi 3 which makes it my all-time favorite is, that you can fly easily through a big 3D arena and can fight against your opponent using several tactics. Plus we have 98 characters in 161 transformations making that DB game the one with the highest number of playable characters.

It's a game which does not get boring, if you want to fight against a friend once in a while. Selecting five fighters each and go for it. Also one of the only DB fighting games which come close to the real Dragon Ball fights.

In comparison Budokai 3 has not these kind of 3D elements. Of course you can move in a certain way, but the handling is nowhere close to Tenkaichi 3. The Raging Blast games (which were released for the next generation of consoles like PS3) came also close to that way of fighting, but it's not the same.

But still, there are elements in Budokai 3 I still favour: The story mode where you could fly around Earth and Namek (which was similar in Tenkaichi 2), the way you could unlock and add attacks and abilities.

Both games had iconic and awesome soundtrack I still love listened to today, although the ones from the Budokai series have its special flair (although some of the were reused the the first Tenkaichi game).

Generally: Both games set its benchmarks and are despite being older than 10 years still loved by fans around the world. And successors would be highly appreciated as many fan modder adding new characters from the Super series into these classic games (especially Tenkaichi 3).

So whichever of both games you prefer, I can understand both sites. 

Pokémon GO 0.87.5: Christmas, Hoenn and New Zealand

My hunt for new Pokémon continues - this time around Christmas time in New Zealand.

Even Pokémon GO gives you a Christmas feeling if try to catch a Pikachu you see the most famous pocket monster with a Christmas hat.

Apart from that some of the Pokémon from the Hoenn region have been released and once you run around the city you get plenty of them:
Treecko, Torchic, Seedot, Skitty, Meditite, Gulpin, Seviper, Poochyena,...

This is actually the last generation I'm aware of the names since I played a lot with the trading cards back then. Following the Advanced Generation I did not keep up with it, but that may changes!

Maybe I should also mention that I was confronted by the bug that once a Pokémon was caught the ball appeared in the initial throwing position again and jumped around as it was a Pokémon. You could only stop the scenario by pressing the run button at the top left. At the end the Pokémon unfortunately was not counted as caught.

But generally I enjoy catching the monster from the third generations. I will drop some updates from time to time...

Why is the PlayStation confirmation button O in Japan?

If you have ever played a PlayStation game in Japanese you may have noticed that the O and X buttons are used the other way around. But what is the reason behind it?

Back in the day when I installed tools like the file manager ULaunchELF on my PS2 and while testing the Japanese versions of 'Dragon Ball' games (which has another music score and that made me interested in changing it myself...) I was for the first time confronted with the difference in the function of the controller buttons. 

For some time I didn't question the reason behind it, but there's more to it which is quite interesting.

It's generally a cultural thing: As in western countries we are used to have an X to confirm something like marking the right answer in a quiz for example.

'X' means 'wrong' - not just at the Japanese PlayStation

In Japan they have a different association: The X is used for an incorrect answer in a test. It's meaning is ばつ (batsu) and has a general meaning for something negative like giving up and 'wrong'. So for in Japan it would be wrong to use it as a confirmation button.

The circle on the other hand the circle with the meaning まる (maru) has the meaning of 'correct' since the correct answer in a test is marked in a circle.

These can even be shown in gestures with arms or hands. Or in right-or-wrong games like 'batsumaru'.

This difference in terms of school tests corrections is actually a topic in the Detective Conan episodes 779 & 880 where a Japanese teacher who lived in America got it wrong after returning to Japan...

Looking at it from this perspective the different usage of the buttons makes totally sense.

When does the Windows calendar end?

In previous Windows versions the calendar often ended at the at of the current century, but recently I noticed a different pattern...

Right, in previous Windows versions the  31/12/2099 was the last date in the calendar. But not only for Windows, also for older Sony PlayStation or Nintendo consoles. Check out this Wikipedia article for that.

In Windows 10 you see something different: If you scroll through the calendar you can always go until exactly 100 years in the future. But if you want to change the system time entirely the final date looks different:

Last date is the 31/12/2047. And I'm still talking about a 64 bit Windows version here. Speaking about 32 bit, there was another limit: 19th January 2038. Read more here: The year 2038 problem.

In short: The counter for 32 bit integer system runs out at this very date. It can cause issues in databases and file system. It needs to be changed to a format using 64 bit, which is going to have a time span for almost 300 billion years. But all that could run into an issue for software being programmed in 32 bit, even though all OS and CPU would support 64 bit by then.

At some point the issue is going to be addressed and solved...

To sum up 64 bit system allowed a wider range in future OS versions. There won't be an end - there's always a solution...

Free YouTube to MP3 Converter no longer free?

As I got asked on why the Free YouTube to MP3 Converter got so slow and is filled with Premium requests... I had to check myself and indeed: The free version is no longer as it was before.

I actually did not notice it myself since I was still using version 4.1.28 and the current version with that big change is 4.1.60 or even older. The included mp4 download is still free and working, but any other format needs now a premium version or is slowed down - no matter if you use the Free YouTube to MP3 Converter or the Free YouTube Downloader.

For years DVDVideoSoft offered these features for free and recently they changed the way of the usage of premium features.

In their forum this very question was asked and the answer is that this step was necessary in order to maintain the quality of the software. Surely understandable, but it will definitely shrink the numbers of users.

For now there's still a way out: Remove the latest version and look for an older version like I had before with 4.1.28. After the test I no longer had a proper installation file of that, but but found 4.1.1 which is still enough for me.

As long as the update does not run automatically (and if, you need to stop it) it seems that you can still continue using the older version - for now...

Chinese Tencent Software Removal

Suddenly you see a Chinese software popped up in your taskbar. But what is it and how do you get rid of it?

The user who contacted me previously tried to install a certain software by using a crack which seemingly failed and installed this 'tool' instead.

It caused lots of unnecessary pop ups in the browser and slows down the system in general. 

But the good news is that you can get rid of it. The bad news is, it's all in Chinese and if you don't know that language it could be difficult.

For me, knowing a bit of Japanese, helped to figure out a few characters. Like 出 means something like 'leave', 'go out' helped to close the software in the taskbar.

Once it's closed, you can proceed with uninstalling the software.

Once it's closed you need to go to the folder as seen in the screenshot above and scroll down to find a file called uninst.exe.
In the next step you need to be cautious in what you select:

• Seeing the next window, select the left option (not the green one!)
• At the next orange window you see three checkboxes - select the last one and proceed with clicking on the red button
• A last checkbox appears and there you should select the left button to complete the uninstall process

After a reboot it should all be fine again, but better check in the control panel under 'Programs & Features' if there's anything left (mostly at the bottom of the list written in Chinese). Try to uninstall other possible software like this as well.

Moreover, I also would suggest to scan the device for some possible malware remnants - my recommendation is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

So, try to stay free of certain software in the future!

Facebook now suggesting possible future users

That Facebook uses the WhatsApp contacts to suggest possible friends is known by now. But today I saw something new...

It's called 'Add Friends Who Aren't on Facebook Yet'. And you can swipe through seeing different contacts from your phone - with phone numbers and even contacts which only had an email address.

So according to that message you can already send a request to a someone how is not on Facebook yet. Another way to get more users.

Let's see what else comes up in the future.

WiFi solutions in New Zealands hostels

In the past few years I made it to several hostels around the planet and the supply of WiFi most went into the same direction, but in in New Zealand I got to see something different...

I've been to several hostels in Europe, US and Asia and the WiFi has always been free and even the password was often visible written on the wall. If that's a safe solution is another topic, but in New Zealand I faced another situation: In three hostels I've already been had always solutions for paid WiFi - only free in certain scenarios:

1) Only paid + extra free WiFi for certain hours on one floor
Exactly, no free WiFi in the dorms, just in the floor of the reception - but not in the evening. Interestingly the access code for that password was changed every few days (some sort of safety at least). You could pay for WiFi either per day or per week. 

2) 2GB per day / per device
A free WiFi solution - but with limited data. Everyday you had to go to the reception and ask for a voucher with a password - valid for 24h after the first login. And it's only for one device at a time.


3) 30 minutes per day / per device
The first solution with unlimited download - if you are quick enough. But after thirty minutes you need to pay if you want to continue. You could cheat around it by changing the MAC address of your device, but still not ideal...

Generally speaking NZ seems to be a bit behind in comparison to other countries. I'm not the only one surprised by this as a talked to other travelers coming here. On the other hand there are still diners, buses or even public spots within cities with free WiFi...
Maybe the solution to pay for extra WiFi still works well for the accommodation owners...

LG K5 and double SIM config

The LG K5 has a slot for a second SIM card. Here are the things you need to check!

With two cards you should decide which SIM card you want to use for which service. Sometimes in regions with multiple countries it could make sense to divide the service depending on what the costs are.

In the European Union for example it seems no longer necessary since all providers should allow mobile (data) roaming now with the same conditions as in the country from where this SIM card's origin is.

But in other cases: Go to 'Settings', 'SIM cards' and you will see the overview with both of your SIM cards. Decide now which you want to use for 'Mobile data', 'Calls' and 'SMS messages'.

You can even set unused cards to 'inactive' if you are currently in a country where it does not make sense to use your SIM.

That's pretty much it. 

Google knows flight delay earlier than airline!

An interesting scenario: You booked a flight, just checked the last email and you find out through Google that your flight is delayed! What the...?

It was too risky not to go to the airport since I haven't received a confirmation from the airline yet. Also: At the website of the airline
the flight was still listed as usual. 

So I went to the airport and... Google was right. The Google Mail entry was accurate. But why? I tried to research it a bit and it seems that Google probably has access to various databases and may gathered the information through other channels.

Another interesting point I read was that some internal emails from the airline may could have forwarded through Gmail causing Google could have get the information through there.

Anyway, it's an interesting scenario. So if you see this information on your account you can assume that there's some truth behind it, but it should be more safe to look for the confirmed delay...

No chance for Xbox in Japan!

I've been to Japan a few times now and it's every time really impressive how much support their own consoles get in comparison to US rivals from Microsoft...

The numbers speak for themselves: More than 5 million sold PS4 in Japan and only around 80.000 XboxOne! I somewhere read a statistic that even more PS3 are sold than XboxOne's during one of the recent months.

Old games and consoles from their own brands are also still popular and sold in Japan. You see so many stores with still lots of PS1 and PS2 games! Or even older Sega and Nintendo consoles + games. One example of a store in Akihabara in Tokyo is a great example of the situation: Just one shelf with Xbox360, XboxOne and Xbox games and multiple shelves just for old PS1 or PS2 games.

The situation for Microsoft is tough in country of videogames and that shows really how tough it really is!

One Piece: Grand Cruise - My first VR experience!

This new One Piece game is planned to be released in 2018. But if you are in Tokyo and go to the Tokyo Tower you can already play a trial version...

In the Tokyo Tower are a few floors dedicated to One Piece which is why this theme park is called 'Tokyo One Piece Tower'. It has so many attractions related to the anime and it's a must for every fan. Interestingly they also offer visitors to play a trial of the new PS4 Virtual Reality game 'Grand Cruise'.

Once you got the VR glasses and the controller you are told only to use one certain button which is enough to go through the trial. Other players doing the same with you as several seats were prepared. I think there were always eight players at once.

At the beginning you sit on the Thousand Sunny a DenDen Mushi is talking to you before Luffy appears just in front of you. It felt so real.

Then you can select to go in either the kitchen where Chopper and Sanji were or.... in the bed room of Nami and Nico Robin. For some reason Nami approaches you way too close.. ;)

Following that the crew gets attacked by a marine ship. It's yours and the other players job to shoot down all the canons coming from the other ship. You aim with your controller and push the button to shoot - at best early enough.


Luffy and Sanji also show their attacks to block the canons from the opponents easily afterwards. There was also a competition among the players which were divided in teams to check how scored the most.

It was really fun - I actually went there actually twice. Could be an interesting game next year once its full version is released.

But anyway, if you are in Tokyo the next time, you should check it out, not only because of the VR, also for the whole theme park itself.

The YouTube Editor is gone - what now?

Google decided to remove the YouTube Editor from its platform - a tool which I used quite often and now is unfortunately another way needed. Let's see what's possible now!

Usually my main purpose to use the YT Editor was to put footage from my GoPro together to cut it correctly afterwards. Therefore I could easily just upload everything to YouTube, set the videos to 'private' and then put them together as I needed them. After the new clips were created, the uploads could be removed.

It helped me to avoid long rendering processes with Sony Vegas and using YouTube for that saved me lots of time! Now I need to find a way to do it offline in a similar less time consuming way...

So I tried combining these mp4 files via command:

copy/b V1.mp4 +V2.mp4

The size of the file changed, but it did not actually append the second file - although it worked with other files before, maybe the GoPro file is too big.

Following that I was looking for another tool which could do that and I found 'MP4 Joiner'. With that tool I could put the mp4 files together which was done in a few minutes before I can upload the new created file to YouTube.

Luckily it's still possible to cut single videos on YouTube by going to 'Video Manager', 'Videos', select the video, dropdown 'Enhancements' and then use 'Trim' as seen in screenshot above.

So to summarize: Create a big video file and cut in on YouTube - but of course only if it's for files which should just be on YouTube in raw format. 

That's the workaround which works for me. If you have a better idea, just leave a comment and let me know :) 

Top 5 excuses: How to tell that you cannot solve the issue

Being in IT support you often end up sending tickets to other groups if the issue goes beyond your responsibilities and/or your permissions. And it unfortunately happens that you get the ticket back with an excuse...

5: 'Login on another computer'
If the basic troubleshooting goes nowhere (uninstalling software, clearing software profile like for MS Office software, repair mode,...) you need get the suggestion to check it with a login from another colleagues computer...

4: 'Please create a new profile'
If it works, it could make sense to recreate the Windows profile on the involved computer. The issue could disappear if it's caused by something wrong in your profile. 

3: 'Please explain the user he has to reinstall (Zero Touch Installation)'
This is the solution if the actual solution is either to tough or tedious to find. Unfortunately the bigger the company or the IT environment is the less affordable is it to spend hours and hours of attempting to find a solution. 

From the view of a technician it's kind of frustrating for not being able or allowed to investigate for a proper solution. Instead of that you`re are just telling the user that`s a quicker and safer to reinstall.

2: 'Please send it to a group who can solve the issue'
That one is actually really funny. The group which received a ticket where they are expected to be responsible for sent the ticket back telling to send it to a group who can solve it.

It´s a really amusing way to tell that you are no idea yourself. But on the other hand you can sure put the whole structure in questions since now it can take a while for a ticket to end up at the correct team... (=> 'ping pong ticket').

1: 'Out of scope'

That's basically the same than the previous one, except this sounds more professional saying something like 'We are not responsible for this (and we don`t know who is...)'.

Conclusion:
Personally, such big companies with big structures cause this kind of ticket handling and solving of issues. Sometimes it's probably better to have a smaller environment to overlook where you can handle stuff right away instead of looking for who is responsible or avoiding further investigation...

The most fun comments while IT troubleshooting calls - 2017

While doing technical IT support in a call center you sometimes face some interesting scenarios, here are a few worth mentioning:

"Is your laptop connected via cable or WiFi?"
- "Yes, the WiFi cable is connected."
It was actually both, but the user was just talking about the cable.

Or another one from another case: "Yes, the WiFi is connected with the cable..."

"Hi, I was forwarded by the ****** Bank and I need a new PIN for my credit card, I would suggest I just start with giving you my credit card number..."
- "Wait, wait,... We are only supporting employees of a certain company and don´t deal with credit cards."
The moment I missed the chance getting lots of money. Like "Ok, can you also give me your security code and the expiration date?" xD #MissedOpportunities

"So I´d like to put my phone down on the table now since I drank too much tea before..."
The user´s way to tell me that she needs to go to the toilet while I was recreating the ost file of the user´s Outlook profile...

"Ok, I need to check this internally if I should confirm clicking on this link. Thanks. Bye."
User denied confirming to download a setup file from an internal server with a 172.16.XXX.XXX address. (see screenshot above)

"Let me explain the following steps to recreate the Outlook ost file: [...], to delete the old ost files, you need to close Skype before and..." (Call stopped)
Well, the user did close Skype while I was explaining the process... so therefore, call stopped :D

Maybe also stuff your get to hear as usual, nothing new...:
"Yesterday it still worked..."
"I didn`t do anything different..."
"I tried that already.." (apparently not...xD)
"I forgot my password...."
...

Ok, now it`s getting old. Maybe some more another time. But still, as Howard Wolowitz would say: "There's two kinds of people in this world. Those who call tech support and those who make fun of the people who call tech support."

LG K5: 'The file format is not supported'

You want to listen to your mp3 files and just get the error message 'The file format is not supported'? Here's why!

If you are using the LG K5 you get to a point where the local storage is getting close.

To make up at least a little more space you may try to disable some Google services like Google Play Movies.

Interestingly, the internal music player is some sort of connection to Google Play Music. Therefore as soon as you disable this Google app you can no longer listen to mp3 files! So that´s a service you need to let keep running.

So... just let it run...

Sony Bravia KDL-32D3000 and HDMI

It did not work initially but you need to check a few things and then you can connect your Sony Bravia TV with HDMI with your computer...

If you go to External Devices you see several AV channels (AV1-AV6), but no HDMI in the selection - and then somewhere in the menu I found HDMI settings and but 'no device could be found', despite being connected to the laptop.

I checked online and most forum threads someone asking about the same issue did not even get an answer. Is the cable too new for this 10 year old Sony TV from 2017? Is the port damaged?

I changed the resolution settings on two laptops - did not help.

It actually was way easier:

AV4 is the upper HD port and 
AV5 the lower one

(glad I found this somewhere !!!)

It did not work initially, but after turn the HD settings off and on - it worked as it should be.

After restarting the Sony Bravia KDL-32D3000 TV the settings were saved. Just selecting AV4 (in that case) and the screen from the laptop screen was visible on TV.

Pokémon GO 0.69.1: My surprising return after one year!

Around one year ago I played Pokémon GO the last time - apparently in September my account was banned - and could not play again. And now it works again - with the same account!

It did not really play that much last year, mostly in Las Vegas and a bit in Germany - when I was in Japan I could not really test it. A shame. From my old phone back then I used a workaround by installing the apk file manually, since the download via PlayStore did not work, but at one point the latest version at the time - 0.39 - stopped me from logging in.

That was the reason I stayed away from the game and asked to reactivate my account. Nothing happened. After switching from the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini to an LG K5 in June I tried to log in again - still did not work...

Suddenly working again!

Today I gave it another shot: Downloaded the current version 0.69.1 via Google PlayStore, installed the game, agreed to login with my Google Account and suddenly I could see the loading screen seeing the Pokémon Tyranitar from the second generation Johto! And the game opened with my old account. I can still see the history!

After catching my first Pokémon after one year and collecting some items my history looks a bit weird (see above). I am not too much

aware what happened during that year. I know they added the second generation of Pokémon and extending the possibility to catch more different Pokémon and being able to actually have battles which seemed not so easily possible at the beginning.

Therefore for me it´s now rediscovering the game again and increasing my Pokédex. Let's see how it's going to turn out the next few days. I'm currently in Spain and I don't know if there are any rare Pokémon here. Anyway, I could already level up from 5 to 6 which is nothing, but not surprising since I haven't played a lot. 

Feel free to comment on your experiences and what happened during that year! I'm now outside checking out the area.. ;)

Open pst files with Linux

Is it possible to open pst files with Linux? Yes. There's a way and I will give you a information how it worked last time for me.

It was a client who used Linux Mint and wanted to use his under Windows created pst backup to be used under his Linux operating system.

This way worked: Install the email client called 'Evolution' + install the pst add-in with which how can you import the pst file.

Copy the pst file to your Linux and start the importing process...

No more audio in taskbar?!

What to do if there's no more volume icon in the taskbar when you see that it's greyed out in the system notifications list?

In my recent case the following solution worked:

• stop the service 'Windows Audio'
• kill explorer.exe
• reopen explorer.exe 

And then the volume icon reappeared on the taskbar again.

I read other cases where reapplying the group polices through

gpupdate /force

within a domain controller based environment also helped to solve the issue. So anyway, there's at least one way...

Files on USB drive damaged through BitLocker

I recently got a case that a user put in a USB drive while starting the BitLocker of the hard encryption...
and put it out while the encryption was running and caused in interesting scenario...

Some folders were untouched, but other folders turned into files without appendix. BitLocker created now recovery key for these folders as I checked.

I gave it one attempt with TestDisk to recover these files, interestingly, the drive was splitted in three partitions - the user had only time for checking one - but as a result several chk files were visible. But looking at the file sizes it did not seemed like the files I was looking for.

Following that I found a tool called deCHK to convert these chk files into the correct files they were supposed to be. However the tool only find 2 txt files - not worth to mention.

The user gave up further attempts, but out of curiosity: Would it have been possible to recover such files? Or rather difficult? An extra BitLocker recovery tool needed? 

In case of certain experiences with similar cases, just let me know how your cases turned out. Would be interesting to know.

My TOP 5 MSDOS games

There were times where computer games were much simpler and still very fun to play. At these times you had MSDOS or the Windows versions 95 or 98. Let's take a look back at which games I played back then...

5. Cawado
It's a fun German game where you give your character text commands to get him or her through the day. From waking up, preparing for school, an after-school job at a gas station and ending the evening in a bar. You can get extra points for appropriate behavior. In general it's kind of fun to have such a game where you can control your character like this.

4. GO310
That game is kind of easy to explain: You have to fill a space with boxes and gain more than 56% while a weird object is flying around. Each time you hit that object you lose a live - so you are game over as soon as you go from 0 to -1. If you the fill the space enough you get to the next level, the object is getting faster each time and afterwards there are even more - plus you will have some mines you need to avoid. Caution: You can get addicted ;)



3. Riptide
A quite fun submarine game which full name was 'In Search of Dr. Riptide'. In the game you take control of the agent Nick who is in control of one bigger and a small submarine. You need to avoid getting damaged by weapons and sea animals, open gates to get to another level. You need to figure out how to open door which are locked by a key or by a button you should find somewhere around...

2. Heroes
Heroes (or it's full name: Heroes 1/4: The Tantalizing Trio) is a fun Jump'n'Run game where you are in control of three characters which have different abilities. It includes multiple level and you need to be cautious about the health of the characters. Once one of the 'heroes' is defeated he ends up in a bubble and can be collected by the next character in order to be saved to get to the next level. 

1. GPCGA 
That was the first Formula One game I have ever played! It covered the 1988 season with eight tracks and three cars to select (Ferrari, Williams, McLaren). As it was back in these days the track looked more or less the same, just the layouts were different. Even Monaco had no guardrails, but interestingly a tunnel where you could crash into. The background also changed a bit from track to track. In Suzuka they even included the Fujiyama!

As nowadays there were different difficulty settings - even with shifting included where you could blow your engine up if you forget it! Else a quite easy game which I played quite often back then, but now - oh dear!

Exchange Email authentification failure through enabled FACE RECOGNITION

If you weren´t aware about that, it sounds quite confusing, but it´s really an applied security measure from MS Exchange Active Sync...

The case was the following: I received a call from a user having issues configuring his email account with his newly acquired Samsung Galaxy S8. 

He got the error message 'Authentification failed' as soon as the user tried logging in with his credentials. I checked at that moment, there was neither an account locking in Active Directory nor a counted failed attempt.

I guided the user to check in OWA (Outlook Web Access) the list with connected phones. The S8 was listed with 'Access denied' and that the device isn´t within the applied security standards.

Interesting. But initially no idea since I needed more information and unfortunately I could not see the phone directly as the user was miles away. 

A few minutes after the call the user messaged that the figured out the issue himself: He disabled the 'face recognition' of his Samsung phone and the error message no longer occurred. Also, the entry 'Access denied' in OWA was also gone.

Quite surprising if you face that issue for the first time. But on the other hand companies need to apply some sort of policies nowadays with the usage of BYOD...

4 Years with a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini

It´s sounds a bit crazy for the lifetime of a smartphone nowadays, but I had my Samsung Galaxy S3 mini for almost 4 years and I changed it now to another phone. A look back.

After 1,5 years with a Samsung Galaxy S Plus which was actually my first smartphone at all, a change was needed, because the display had some scratches already for quite some time and the contract was about to expire and so it made sense to change.

Since I had a phone contract, I selected one of the cheapest options possible, the Galaxy S3 mini for one extra euro. Back on this day in 2013 I did not expect that I would still have it in Mid-2017.

And for some reason over all the years it just got one little almost not visible scratch, but I dropped multiple times, at least on 50 occasions... I did not count, it´s just a random number. How often did it end up under the bed, on the streets with the outer cover and the battery forcefully removed from the phone. And that at the three different continents and multiple countries.

I even lost it a few times: Last year for example, while hiking north of San Diego on some hills with warnings signs of snakes I noticed that my phone was no longer in my pocket. On my own I decided to walk the entire path back checking every corner. At a moment I almost came to a point where I thought I went past, I found it: Half covered in sand, but still running and not damaged.

In the same month a few weeks before while traveling through Canada and the United States the Pokémon GO hype started. And I wanted to be part of it. Unfortunately my phone was not ready: Android version too old and no Android 5 officially available, but I stayed confident and updated the phone to a Cyanogenmod with Android Lollipop (as you can read here). But only until September, I was obviously banned, could not login anymore with my email address - it was not available in PlayStore anyway, I needed to install it manually as an apk file.

But this upgrade to Android 5 gave the phone a new life. It ran faster and having a new GUI let me initially felt like I got a new phone. But then I already noticed: It needs a bit more of battery. 

Financially it was also a nice solution: I let my phone contract expire and switched back to prepaid including a little basic mobile data flatrate. For just a few euros a months it was a quite attractive solution to keep that phone for a while.

But now anno 2017, it got slower and the storage was more and more on the limit since the WhatsApp database and other apps where taking more and more space. After moving the Spain at the beginning of the year the bank there offered me a LG K5 for free. That´s why I switched phones a few days ago, moved every data and application to the new phone.

And that´s why the story of my Galaxy S3 mini now ends after 3 years and 11 months, after travelling to many countries around the world, joined me to the highest point of Spain, the Teide, got lost a few times, but nobody wanted to steal it... 

It still works and I will keep it - just in case.

LINE chat history to another device

Since it´s quite easy with WhatsApp to move the backup via cloud from one device to another the way for LINE is a bit different...

And in general it can become a bit more time-consuming - depending on how many chat partners you have in your history. 

But it´s not too difficult: You go on your old phone, open the first chat and select 'Chat settings' in the upper right of the screen.

Then select 'Back up chat history' and select 'All' (which includes also the media files) to backup the whole chat history with that contact in a zip file to send it to your email address.

Do that with all your LINE chats you want to save. Then use your new phone, install LINE, log in and verify your account. Now download all the chat history zip files from your mail account to your phone.

In the next step you open the first contact for a chat, go again to 'Chat settings', but this time you chose 'Import chat history'.

Initially I copied the files to the LINE folder on the phone, but there was no need. LINE gets the data also straight from the downloads folder (see screenshot).

Follow these steps now one chat by one to get everything back from your old device to your new device. 

Overall it´s a bit more work - but the result is as wished.

From a classic SIM to Micro SIM - and it worked!

After using a 'classic' SIM card for many years I reached a point where I had to switch to a phone which no longer supports big SIM cards. Here´s how it went...

With my old Samsung Galaxy S3 mini getting slower and the battery discharging quite quick the signs are clearly showing for a change to another phone. Which I got. From a bank. And even for free. It´s a LG K5 with two SIM slots. But more about that another time.

I was aware that it was possible to cut your SIM card to a smaller Micro SIM with a cutting template, but I never tried it before. Now, while being in Germany - in proximity to my service provider if anything goes wrong - I gave it a shot. 

I printed the template, cut the lines as suggested easily with a scissor. After the important cuts were done I switched to a nail file in order to make the card fit properly and getting the lines more accurately. Initially it did not work. Tried the file again and the card was in. I booted the LG phone and the PIN was requested! Great, it worked.

But for some reason mobile data did not really work, even after a few minutes. I mean the 'E' (edge) letter was seen at the top, so 'Data' was basically on. First I expected that may a part of the SIM got damaged. Or even the slot? I tried the second slot, issue the same. 
Refiled the SIM again a bit and put it back into the first one. Issue remained. But there was some data transferred, just a few MB, but opening Google and other sites ended in a timeout.

So what about the APN settings? They looked kinda old, so I checked for other settings for German T-Mobile:

Name: T-Mobile

APN: internet.t-mobile

User name: t-mobile

Password: tm

Changed the settings, rebooted. Waited a few minutes for changes to apply and then it worked. In hindsight, maybe the old settings would also have worked if I had waited a bit longer, but anyway:

The SIM card cut worked!

How to solve Internet Explorer issues - Basic Troubleshooting

Having problems with running webpages and other web applications running with Internet Explorer? Here´s a basic troubleshooting which IT supporters could face on a daily level - depending on the position of course...

Doing 1st-Level IT tasks sometimes feels like running in a circle and doing the same things over and over again. One of these tickets can be solved by are clearing the Internet Explorer´s temporary data... Here´s how:

1. Clearing the browser cache
Close the browser, go to Internet options, General and "Delete"

Select all the checkboxes (except the first one doesn´t really matter) and confirm with "Delete".

2. Remove the SSL state
Select another tab, this time "Content" and select "Remove SSL state".

3. Clear credentials
For that step, go to in Control Panel to the Credential Manager and remove all entries.

Once that´s done you can try to open the Internet Explorer again. If there´s still a problem with the website which only involves your browser I would recommend to do an Internet Explorer reset (in Internet Options => Advanced Options).

And the other solution is: Just use Google Chrome ;)

CLCL - Finally found a great clipboard tool!

Sometime ago I was searching for a tool to save my most recent entries where I used the clipboard and I didn't find something useful. But now without looking for it, I discovered a great and easy piece of software...

I learned about from an employee of a call center because he had to type certain line over and over again and also had to copy multiple words from one field to another. For that having a bigger clipboard is the best solution. 

The software I'm taking about is CLCL and created by Tomoaki Ohno. Available in both English and Japanese it´s available to download at www.nakka.com. 

It saves a huge amount of previous clipboard entries, even more than 100 or 1000 if you change the settings. And you select the previous entries easily by pressing Alt + C. A list pops up and you can select what you need. And trust me, you get easily used to that!

Moreover, you create folders within the tool including lines you need quite often in order to reuse them over and over. Ideal for the certain work in a call center. But not just there.

Anyway, a quite useful tool, which I can only recommend.

So that's why OneNote is used for

For many years as an IT technician I was surely aware of the existence of Microsoft OneNote as being part of the Office Suite, but I never saw it actually used - until 2017...

It´s actually a really great tool for personal documentation and databases. I saw it this year the first being used like this. In the department I worked for a 'basic database' was sent around and everyone updated it on its own.

And some point good, but on the other hand it would be better to put the OneNote files on network folders and work with it like this.

Generally it's great to use, especially through the search engine to get the right information quickly. Especially if you have lots of information in your database.

Like a really big notepad database. It's just important you use it for the right purpose. Some things are better to be shared on an intranet knowledge base...