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.

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...