Evernote - We had a good run

I used Evernote since 2012 and the app has been really useful to me throughout the years, but recently developments force me find other ways.

Crazy to think about that I started using the app already 12 years ago. The appealing point was that I could create things like personal To-do lists on either phone or PC and keep them synchronized. Was ideal for planning travels or just keeping personal notes for things you shouldn't forget. I even used it sometimes for longer texts such as fanfiction stories.

All good, but I think it was earlier this year things became more difficult for free users as the amount of notes was reduced to around 20 I think. Was still fine with me. There were only a few notes which I would regularly update. So I exported old ones into html files and just kept using occasional notes. The pop-ups all the time were quite annoying, but was still fine for the time being.

Maybe I was too optimistic while others already smelled the fire. A recent change now only allows only one free device per user. And that made the app no longer useful for me. I will now go with a very simple and free alternative: GoogleDocs.

It does everything I need and it's not justifiable to have a monthly subscription for synchronizing a few KB of text files. A shame, but there were are. Will the paid model work in the long-term? Time will tell, but I won't be a part of it.

Pokémon GO Q&A: Important questions answered - Part 1

As a casual player or even beginner there are certainly situations you face and you would prefer having a proper answer. On this page, I try to answer a few of these.

Q: What happens if I each the limit of 300 Pokémon?
A: Either you have to buy more spots or you get rid of Pokémon you may have more than once.

Q: How to remove Pokémon and what happens if I do it?
A: If you have too many Pokémon you can send them away. Once a Pokémon is removed, you receive one BonBon of the Pokémon family you let go. Means, if you for example sent away a Bulbasaur, your Venusaur will benefit from it. Can be an efficient way to get BonBons.

Q: How long does it take to evolve to a stronger Pokémon?
A: It depends on the Pokémon. You can see the necessary level to evolve. Usually it's at level 25, 50 or 100! Depending on which Pokémon it can go fast, but if similar Pokémon don't appear often it can take months.

Q: Why is augmented reality not working?
A: Some devices are facing issues that if a new wild Pokémon appears, the camera for showing the real world cannot be used. In this case the following message appears: "We’re not detecting your phone’s orientation. Would you like to turn off AR Mode?” It means that your device may not have a gyroscope. Apparently an issue for many Huawei devices.

Q: What is the meaning of the blue aura around some Pokemon in the Pokedex?

A: It simply just means that the Pokémon was just caught recently and the blue aura is only highlighting it.

Q: Can I use the app in the train or bicycle?

A: Yes, you can, but you will get a warning message. Always a chance for a PokéStop at the next train station.
Although I would recommend it anyway near traffic, it also works from bicycle if you don't ride too fast. Tested on empty streets on the countryside.

Q: Can I use train rides to get more km for my eggs?
A: Usually quite quickly a warning message pops up not to use the app while driving. Also, the kilometer count for the eggs stops. However I had a few situations where I actually got some mileage, even if it was just for a few hundred meters.

Q: How to earn virtual money?
A: Go to gyms, defeat all the Pokémon (even if it take several attempts to get their CP down to 0) and then place on of your own Pokémon there. The longer it stays the more you earn. Once it's defeated it will be sent back to you. I don't exactly how it's calculated, but a few hours bring around 30 PokéCoins.

Pokémon GO 0.129.2.: Lots of Pokémon in Japan!

Now in Japan, I feel like I find more Pokémon than ever before. And Generation 4 is coming!

Now leveled up to level 23 and many more Pokémon on my belt I'm currently running through Japan and I noticed that I can catch many more than before. Most likely because I'm mostly in a city and the chances are therefore higher.

And through this high amount of Pokémon I was able to level up easier and could now finally evolve my pocket monsters. For example all three first Generation Eevee evolutions which seem to be really competitive - especially Jolteon (サンダース) with CP 2032.

According to my Pokédex I have seen 255 different Pokémon and caught 178 of them. With Generation 4 now being added I've got to catch monsters I've never seen before. And since I'm playing it in Japanese since I haven't played games including G4 Pokémon. Especially モウカザル already been one of my favorites.

I also got some more experiences with Gym battles. But it can be really annoying on bigger public places like train stations. Playing with Team Red after trying a few times I defeated the opponents Pokémon, but as I needed a few seconds to recharge my own defeated monsters, I couldn't place my own Pokémon there as another team already took over the gym. No chance, some areas are just to busy.

But even if I could keep the gym at another place - it's not like some at a village where you can keep the gym for a while to receive some coins. I think my record of keeping a Pokémon at gym here in Japan was maybe a bit more than an hour. But still, that was outside Tokyo.

Generally, I have a better feeling for the game now. Using the friends option to exchange presents I also quite interesting. Let's see where I can go from here!

Until my next "Pokémon GO diary" entry!

Why I cannot download Japanese apps?

If you go to Japan and open the Google PlayStore you'll find out that you are unable to install some local apps. But is there a solution to work around that problem?

Let's take the example of 'Dragon Ball Legends' which was released this summer. And in the Google Play Store there is a 'western' version and a Japanese version.

However, if you search for the Japanese version using katakana the game doesn't appear in result list. Just English suggestions.
But why?

The reason is that your Google Play Store account needs to be associated to the country Japan instead of your local one.

If you currently live in Japan it makes to be able to see all the apps.

Therefore, what's the next step?

Change to the country! I would suggest the following way (via browser):

• Login in Google PlayStore website 
• Go to "Google Account" in the upper right
• Select "Payments and Subscriptions"
• "Manage Payment methods"
• Go to setting to see your "payments profile"
• Change it to the "Japan" and add necessary information
• Confirm and wait (can take maybe a few days)

Once it's completed, check on your phone if your are connect to the correct payment profile associated with the country you are living. Now go to PlayStore and see if you can find local apps.

And that's an example an how it should look.

Dragon Ball Legends: First impressions on the new fighting game

Released this summer - 

a new Dragon Ball game is out. This time for smartphones - and for free! So it's very to check it out.

Throughout the past couple of months I was aware that this game was in the making and about to be released in summer, but I somewhere missed the point that it was actually free to play.

A colleague at work got me into it since he was already playing for a while.

So, to the game itself:
Story wise you follow Shallot, a new game-only Saiyan, who is gets in touch with for Z fighters for the Tournament of Time.

The battle system itself is quite easy to play: You get cards for sprint attacks, blasts or little power-ups (as seen on the screenshot). You can charge yourself by holding your finger on the touch screen and also do single punches or blasts without using the cards.

Your are in a team with up to three fighters with which you can switch during the battle. Each character needs to be leveled up, be it by single training, joining the story battle or playing against others. You can exchange a friends code and fight against friends.

Apart from that you are able for daily summons - means that you can get new characters - for example recently they added some movie characters like Freeza's brother Coola. 

As it seems they are adding more and more content to the game like extra story arcs, characters... So I hope we should see more Dragon Ball Super characters soon.

Therefore, I can recommend the game, it's fun to play!

Why can't WhatsApp be more flexibel?

Anno 2018 - WhatsApp has 1.5 billion users and is therefore still THE messenger. However, there still many things I'd like to be addressed in the future...

Two years ago I wrote an article about things WhatsApp can improve in the future. Things like video calls have been introduced, documents like PDF can be sent, but there are many things I'd like to see different.

Starting with the way the account is used: The ID for the login is basically phone number from your SIM card. Therefore in situations when you lose your SIM card, switch to a phone with another SIM card format (especially on travels) and/or a phone broke down, it's getting complicated to use your previous account.

And even if when you need to use a new phone number, but with the same Google account there's no way to use a backup from your GoogleDrive since its connected to another phone number.

Especially that case could have been solved way easier. They could introduce an option giving your Google account or your email address as an secondary login option. Or is that too risky for being misused since the SIM card is a safer option of course (but it looks different if the phone gets stolen...).

It's definitely something which could be worked on since it's it would make the app more flexibel.

Speaking of 'more flexibel', the database export could be better. There are third-party applications making a proper export and not just a text file.

I remember the MyPhoneExplorer which could make short message exports nicely as an HTML file. I don't see why WhatsApp could offer something like that themselves.

Anyway, let's see what happens in the future and if they are going to add some features making certain things easier...

LG K5's battery problems and end...

My LG K5 or better probably the battery faced (or is still facing) a slow death while being on the travels. A look back on my only 10 months with that phone.

After four years with Samsung Galaxy S3 mini before this phone not even lasted one year. I can easily see, 'Of course, because it was free', but the issue is most likely related to the battery.

But from the beginning: As I got it seemed like a step forward for me on one side - since there was an Android 5 version installed from the beginning. But it had lots of downsides: The camera was worse than at the previous Samsung. And there was not even a proper music player pre-installed.

No chance of making a playlist or anything. I additionally added the Vanilla Music player for at least being able to let multiple run in a row.

And the phone storage was a big problem: I was always close on the space, even if I had put media files on a separate SD card - but I was really limited on the amounts of apps I could install.

It wasn't even possible to extend the app storage through an SD card. And then came the biggest issue: The battery.

First it was alright listening to music all day at work, but then it got rapidly less. I went to flight mode quite often to keep the battery alive. Especially WiFi and mobile data cost a lot of energy.

In March I reached a point where the battery went down to 0 within 15 minutes. I could only temporary start the phone again. And the charging process got weird: Sometimes it went quickly to 100% or it remained stuck at 0%. Often you need to put in on charger for an hour to be able to boot at all.

This situation confronted me with the situation: New battery for around AU$40 (if I find it) or switch to another phone.

And I find a good price for a Huawei Y7 the situation was easy to solve. Just migrating the data is a matter of patience. As the LINE backup went easily via bluetooth, WhatsApp needs to saved different as my current backup is not up-to-date and I also need to change the phone number since I cannot activate WhatsApp on new phone with a European number while being in Australia. Probably I will temporary switch...

Anyway, since the LG was free, it was alright. But now I already feel better using the new Huawei phone.

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...

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. 

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.. ;)

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!

Repair damaged videos from your Android phone

I was recording a few videos recently and during the recording I could no longer press 'Stop'. Video wasn't saved properly and couldn't be played at all. But there was a *.tmp file left...

Using my old Galaxy S3 mini my recording ended up with having no more space on the internal SD card and that's why the video couldn't be finalized and the phone also started rebooting afterwards.

At first, I couldn't really see if there was a temporary file or not, but the phone indeed created a 'mp4.tmp' file. From that point on I was sure I could save the video...

Some research...

At first I tried putting the file into video editing software, but no chance! Using Internet search engines you'll find a lot of software with that feature. I tested an app in Google PlayStore called 'MP4Fix': You first chose the damaged file and then another undamaged video file in order that the app can take the video header from it to repair the corrupted mp4 file.

The process was successful and then the app offered the option to 'Play' the video. It worked, it had the actual length and also the sound was working. But now the downside: If you chose 'Save' you'll get the offer to upgrade the app to 'Premium' for 3.99€. Of course that's an option and an easy an quick solution, but for me it was rather a challenge to find a free solution.

Some Windows software were using the same 'freemium' model like a software called 'Remo'. Fixing and watchng within the software works, but no free way to save or export it. Through further researching I actually saw a few times the same good solution by 'cheating a bit' while using a demo version of another repairing tool...

A little workaround...

Here's how it goes: Google for 'Video Repair tool Grau' and you'll find a demo version of that useful piece of software. The thing is that you can save 50% of your video with the free demo version! And if you cheat a bit, you can even save 100% of your video by converting 50% of two copies of your damaged file. But let's put into an order:

1) Download the tool
2) Copy your damaged file into an 'easy-to-reach' folder
3) Rename it simple (it chose just 'V1.mp4')
4) Copy 'V1.mp4' and name it 'V2.mp4'. Now you have two files with the same size.

5) Open command ('cmd') as administrator and go the folder with these two video files
6) Use this command to merge the two files:

copy/b V1.mp4 +V2.mp4

7) V1.mp4 is now twice as big as before. 

8) Open the 'video repair tool'

9) Select the new 'V1.mp4' file and another reference video file from copied your phone. Click 'Scan' and the video will be created (because of the trick even in full length) in the 'repaired' folder as seen in the screenshot.

It's a quite simple workaround, but it works perfectly. My video was saved and I hope yours will be, too!

Top 5 Japanese Language Learning Apps for Android

As you may noticed through the topics of my articles about certain anime games or language-related stuff - I am a fan of Japan and their language and this article shows you my Top 5 apps to learn that language.

Some of these apps I'm using for a longer time, some not even a year. But altogether they're quite helpful while being on the run or waiting for someone/something to repeat vocabulary, gain new knowledge or remaining connected with the Japanese language.

1. AnkiDroid

I'm using AnkiDroid for a longer time already, even for other languages. It's an app with large vocabulary lists which you can either download or create yourself. After seeing a new word you can decide if it's easy to memorize or not and thus you decide when you get to see it again - in a few minutes or even in a few months or years (just if you saw it quite often already).

In terms of Japanese you should start to learn hiragana and katakana at the beginning. I can say for me AnkiDroid played a big part in learning these first around 100 characters. And you should also create your own deck with Japanese words you collect through going through books, watching anime or hearing in video games.

2. Jsho
'Jsho' is an app named after the Japanese name for 'dictionary' (じしょ), because IT IS an dictionary. The app is an offline version of the famous Japanese dictionary website 'jisho.org'. 

This application is already quite helpful at the beginning because you can search for words by using our characters as well as Hiragana or Katakana. And this app has also a connection to AnkiDroid: Once you've found a certain word you can send it to your Anki deck.


3. IQQI Japanese

After being able to memorize the first characters it would also be helpful to actually write them. That's why you need IQQI Japanese! It's an alternate keyboard with included Japanese characters. You can easily switch from our Latin letters to both Hiragana and Katakana - even Kanjis can be chosen after putting the right characters together. 

With that you can type new words into your Anki decks by yourself and write messages to someone in Japanese.



4. Memrise

Another great learning app, but even more developed in many ways. There are several decks in any language available, so also in Japanese. The apps even has a points scoring system included where repetition brings you more points than new words. 

You see the word in English and you have several hiragana/katakana/Kanji characters and you have to put them together in the correct way - or the other way around. Or you listen to three Japanese words in order to find the correct meaning. Or putting sentences together in the right order. And everything brings points - as well as knowledge and experience of course.

If you have friends using the same app you can compare who of you did the most points during the last week/month or even in total.


5. LINE

With WhatsApp nowadays being the the messenger with the most users in the world, there are still other similar apps. Like LINE which is really big in Japan and a few other Asian countries. So if you want to communicate with Japanese people in order to improve your language skills it's quite important to have that messenger. 

Like in WhatsApp you can also do calls and video calls - which were introduced way earlier than in WhatsApp. 

And like in Facebook you can post pictures on your timeline and others can comment. And the PC application is way more secure and better than the WhatsApp version. 

Summary
So these were the five free apps which were and still are quite helpful for me improving my Japanese. Of course there are also apps teaching you the grammar better and so on, but this overview is great if you are 'on the run'.

Feel free to share your opinion in the comments below.

Old Galaxy S3 mini with CyanogenMod - Experience report

Five months ago I changed the OS of my three year old Samsung Galaxy S3 mini in order to be able to play Pokémon GO, here's a little experience report about CyanogenMod 12.1.

Generally it's running faster and better than with Android 4.1.2 which was the latest official version for the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini. 

This CyanogenMod is an Android 5.1.1 version and it really brought my phone 'back to life'. Although my primary plan was to be able to play Pokémon GO to be part of the summer hype.

By now, I even can't play Pokémon GO anymore, I was obviously banned for using an too old phone. Despite having Android 5 I couldn't download or update the app by a simple PlayStore download. No, I had to find the apk and install it manually.

Other important apps don't have a problem with that. You just have to be cautious, the total space of the phone is just 4.65 GB, so for too many bigger it could be an issue without an additional card. 

Another advantage from Android 5 is that you do not longer need to do a certain trick to get a language change done. For example you can change your phone system language to Japanese without an issue.

There's a funny bug, let's say every 1-2 months that you can't select WiFi anymore (see picture above). Do a reboot and it's back again.

Else there's nothing else worth to mention. Let's see how long it's going to run...

WhatsApp: Phone date inaccurate

You want to start WhatsApp, but you can't because a message pops up that your phone date is inaccurate? The solution should be quite easy.

The message is the following:
'Your phone date is inaccurate! Adjust your clock and try again.' So selecting 'Adjust date' doesn't solve the issue in the most cases - but sure, sometimes it's THE SOLUTION. 

But what if the date is correct and you're trying to change it all the time and it doesn't work? It's luckily just a bug having an older WhatsApp version installed.

So just go to your app store and update your application.
Following that the app will start regularly. Maybe you just have to confirm your phone number and username, but that's it.

I've heard that if you have this problem with an iPhone you may have to reinstall the app completely. I've only seen it on Android devices so far.