Extend your Japan Visa online, but don't use Gmail!

With having finally the option to extend my Japan visa online, I thought I'd give it a go this year. But I ran into some interesting roadblocks...

First off all, a MyNumber card (マイナンバーカード) is required which I already got last. 

Then you need a card reader for your PC which can read the MyNumber card. In my case I got the 接触型ICカードリーダー from Goppa. 

Once everything's connected you need to install the JPKI利用者ソフト, and also add the browser plugin (such as from Google Chrome).

Some little font issue...

To ensure that the card reader works, I connected my card and opened the JPKI software to check. Interestingly, despite my PC having been set to Japanese language, sometimes letters could not be properly displayed.

Solution: In "Control Panel > Region > Administrative > Change system locale..." the language needs to be set to Japanese with ""Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support" to be unchecked.

Following that things like my visa expiration date could be read from the MyNumber card properly. Everything can only be read after entering your PIN(s) of course.

Then it was time to go to that immigration website and create an account (登録).

During that process you fill out basic information such as where you live.
After the final screen (Step 3) the screen displays a message that I should receive an email to continue - and which should also allow me to create a password for the account.

I'd also recommend making a screenshot or writing down the 認証 ID. Especially considering what happened next...

The Mail to Change your Password...

I waited a few days to the next weekend where I still didn't receive an email. So I tried to use the "Change Password" option to trigger the email to be resent. As expected nothing happened.

Following that I emailed the support email address which is mentioned on that site. About 24 hours later I got the answer that it's not recommended using so-called フリーメール (free email services) such as Google, Hotmail or iCloud.

As that Immigration website uses a system which restricts access to overseas IP addresses.

Wow. That wasn't mentioned anywhere on that website.

At that point I wondered which email provider I could actually use. So I started researching online, but since that system is quite new, it was hard to find any information regarding that topic. 

Luckily I found an article on spouse-visa.jp explaining the whole process (which was luckily just posted the day before), where it's mentioned that Yahoo email addresses (assuming ending with co.jp) can actually be used.

Luckily I created a Yahoo address at some point before, so I rechecked whether I could actually log in again.

Following that I called my local immigration office as recommended in the previous email in order to change the email address of my already registered account.

However I got advised to call the number of that other company doing the support of that site. So I called there as well, but they actually cannot change the email address and told me to call the Immigration office again.

So I coincidentally ended up with the same guy as before again, but after explaining the situation I got send to another co-worker.

Here I finally got the chance to change my email address, but that person advised me that it's not recommend to use any free mail service, even Yahoo would not be possible.

Mail services coming from a phone provider such as Softbank should rather be used.
However I insisted on using a Yahoo address for now and in case it still wouldn't work, I could call again. The guy on the other side then kindly changed my email address as requested to my Yahoo one.

He said it could take around 30 minutes to a few hours for the changes to take effect.
I was quite hopeful that it would work, but you never know, so I went for a walk, came back and in fact after a bit more than an hour even a confirmation email for the "email address change" had arrived on my Yahoo address. 

I tried the password reset and even that email arrived immediately.

From here on onwards I could continue to fill out the forms and upload all the documents I had prepared. Also here I kept using my Yahoo address as further mails regarding my visa would go there as well (keep checking there occasionally or forward it).

Such as the final confirmation mail which came the day later.

Now my new residents card should be on its way soon.

Facebook map fixed!

The world check in map on Facebook is finally fixed, but what was the reason?

For that I don't have an answer since I did not receive any message that it was solved. I just tested it by coincidence and it worked again.

Back in May after tests with several browsers I came to the conclusion to send my issue to the Facebook Help Center, after I noticed that it did not work for weeks.

But what ever it was: I'm glad it's finally fixed and that I can look at it again from time to time.

So it took three months, what's your experience about that situation?

Fixing HDD and CPU always up to 100%

Today I could fix a case where a computer got incredible slow over the years, but it took to check lots of points...

First of all the issue was initially hard to figure out where it's coming from. 

Either the HDD in the Task Manager went up to 100% or the CPU - or both together. Even when no application was started. Narrowing down which service or application was at fault was difficult as well as it was always another one.

So I tried first with the 'obvious' solution which you find quite often online: Switching off services like 'Windows Search' or 'Superfetch'. Initially it seemed like no change at all. I even checked the hard disk since I even found sites where users where claiming having issues with the Toshiba DT01ACA100. But the HDD was fine so far, nothing visible with checking tools.

So what else... Such issues can come through viruses or malware so I gave Malwarebytes AntiMalware another go. And it found more than 4000 suspicious entries! After clearing them all and going for another reboot, let the software went through after to check if the malware is really gone and suddenly the issues got less!

Surely, right after booting the computer still took a while 'calm down' in terms after processor and hard disk usage. But then you could finally reproduce it by opening the Firefox browser and open certain websites. Or starting MS Office software.

Generally websites using flash took pushed the scale high again, but after certain tests to fix that issue within FF failed and I tried the same with Google Chrome which was faster and and slightly better.

And now after several restarts the computer finally seems fine again - hopefully it remains!

Facebook Check-Ins Cities not loading anymore

Actually one of my favourite features on Facebook and it's currently not working. Can it be fixed?

It noticed it already a while ago, since I like checking the world map especially after checking in to lots of places around the world after a long travel. 

However, I cannot use this feature now for a couple of months. I cleared the cache, using IE or Google Chrome making no difference. As soon as you go to 'Places' the loading bars are running.

I googled for the issue if other users are experiencing the same and it seems that it can happen from time to time. In this thread in the Facebook community Help Center there was simple the suggestion to report the issue to Facebook.


So, I did the same, now waiting for response. As soon as I know something I will get back to that!

And if you have any experience on that feel free to comment!

Google Blogger and bX-tsn23x

I was recently about to change the name for one of my Google blogs, but I always ran into an error message. Here´s what I tried and how I could finally change the name.

The error message was the following: "Whoops, that´s an error! (bX-tsn23x)". The message appeared shortly after I changed the name of the subdomain of the Google blog. Sometimes I could change the name for a few seconds until it was changed back again.

Here´s what I tried:
- removing all the Chrome browser cache
- opened in the Internet Explorer/Edge
- opened in an incognito windows

It did not solve the issue: But then I found a better idea!
To open Blogger in Draft Mode. ==> https://draft.blogger.com

I changed the name again and it remained. I could open the new page name without issues now! And that´s it. Good to know.

Blog stats - June 2016

Let's take a look at some stats from June which Google Blogger offers me. Let's take a look at the click percentage of the countries, browsers and operating systems.

Of course these numbers aren't completely accurate and some countries with a low amount of clicks are missing. Anyway, looking at the big ones - the most clicks are coming from the United States, France and Germany.

Looking at the operating systems we can clearly see Windows with the biggest percentage, but it would have been interesting to see which Windows versions were used. Ùnfortunately we can't see more with Google Blogger, Google Adwords would be better for that.

And finally a view at the web browsers: Google Chrome is clearly ahead followed by Mozilla Firefox. Internet Explorer and Safari with 7% each were rarely used.

Addonjet and a.karmakitty.info

What a crap...

Another case on malware cleaning shows how to get rid of the annoying karmakitty pop-ups in Google Chrome and unwished ads by Addonjet.

The computer is infected with malware and the web browser can't be used properly anymore. In every step you take another pop-up appears wanting you to call a phone number. In my case the problems only occured on Google Chrome.

Possible browser extensions which were also responsible for this couldn't be removed anymore. The settings menu closed when you attempted to open the extension list. Cleaning up the cache didn't help to solve this.

And there was no unwanted software installed so the fastest and most-effective way was to run a complete malware check. I recommend Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, which found a lot of infections.
After the clean-up and restart the whole issue was solved. Make sure your antivirus software is working properly or may get a better one.