Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

So my father got his first WhatsApp spam today. Looks like the standard "young attractive Asian woman sends a message with a number for calling back" (the number having a Vietnam prefix in this case). The curious thing, and the reason my father contacted me about it is:
The message was addressed to my nickname that I am only called by within my family. And sent to my father's phone number. In his contacts I am not listed under that nickname. That's either a really big coincidence or a nice piece of social engineering, but my father is not that good a target for that to be a reasonable assumption. :D
 
I'll just leave this here.

 
After coming home from a weeks holidays, my fire tv* greets me with a message that it can’t find/connect to the remote and to basically „press any key to continue“. Yeah. Right. What?
Must’ve been the same dev that came up with the old BIOS message: „no keyboard connected. Press f1 to continue“.

* yes i should get rid of that ad infested piece of garbage. It’s annoying me with how generally crap and slow it is, but it was very cheap. Someone do an Apple TV sale please?
 
I mean, the Apple TV sale is "buying a used one" :p
 
Ran update in Win10, telemetry started using 80% of cpu, killed that, update needed a restart. Restart, then no installation found.

Used recovery drive, no install found about 10 times, no start repair possible...etc

Removed recovery usb and it booted into Win10 o_O

Now, when I try to create a new recovery drive, its says files missing, even though sfc scannow says its ok o_O
 
As I've explained in the "First World Problems" thread, I need to return the iPhone SE (2020) I'm currently using. Long story, I won't be missing it much, but migrating the data will pose a bit of a problem.

Now, the first option, and what I thought was the only option, was to back up all the stuff that I can via iTunes, and export WhatsApp chats separately. This way I wouldn't have access to older WhatsApp messages on my phone any more, but I'd still have them archived somewhere. Also, I could use an intermediate account for all the important messages I want to keep on my phone, as @Matt2000 nicely pointed out.

The thing is, I might've come around with a workaround until I can afford a decent iPhone. (And I've looked at data plans, they'd all be considerably more expensive than what I currently have.) I happen to have a beaten-up iPhone 6 in my possession. It might not be much, but it has 64GB of storage (as much as my current SE 2020) and it's an iPhone, meaning, provided that iOS 12 supports it, I can keep all my WhatsApp messages, and all the other stuff that I need, directly on the phone. The downside to the workaround plan is, well, I don't know if iOS 12 is of any help here, and I'm not sure I want to daily an iPhone 6 for a couple of months.

Also, I'm still pondering should I stay with an iPhone or go back to Android for my next phone purchase. I basically narrowed my next phone choices down to iPhone 11 Pro and Google Pixel 5. (I know neither is new, but they fit my needs perfectly: compact size, decent camera, decent software experience, and they happen to fit my budget.) I got hooked onto iOS a bit, but there are certain bugs on my current SE that annoy me. Namely while using AirPods (which are another reason I want to stay with an iPhone). But then, I'm used to Android as well, and I'm tempted by unlimited Google storage. I know that's a decision for the future me, but it determines on whether I do the temporary iPhone 6 workaround or go straight back to my Huawei P20.
 
Me again. I just learned today that the price of 50GB iCloud subscription is €1.00 per month, about 10 times less than I thought it was. If I backed up everything to iCloud, went back to Android, and then went back to an iPhone in two or three months, would I still get all my photos and whatnot back?

I don't really feel like migrating all the data manually.
 
I believe so, yes. This is assuming you don't just have google photos on your iPhone, on which case at least that particular matter should be settled.
 
If you already have an iCloud account with the free storage your iPhone should already be creating a backup profile you can restore later. Even if it isn't, assuming the photos are uploaded you would just need to turn iCloud sync on and they will all be downloaded to the new phone. I like to keep mine on the phone in full resolution, or you're essentially just getting a shadow of the original file stored on iCloud.

I find the storage to be pretty good value, I've had the £2.49 for 250GB for years and the price has stayed the same.
 
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Bwahahaha... :hammer:

I started working for a new company in the beginning of March. Now that I know most of the stuff I need I'm taking responsibility for a project which lingered for some time now because there wasn't enough manpower. That project is a migration of a mailserver from tobit David to Microsoft Exchange. In David there are distribution rules which assign mail addresses to mailboxes. Those distribution rules can't be migrated to Exchange though so I have to transfer those distribution rules to additional mail addresses in the various mailboxes. The kicker is that the database is written so poorly that I can't insert all of the addresses because apparently the data field in the database has a friggin' hard limit of 128 characters - yes, characters, not entries... :blink:
 
Bwahahaha... :hammer:

I started working for a new company in the beginning of March. Now that I know most of the stuff I need I'm taking responsibility for a project which lingered for some time now because there wasn't enough manpower. That project is a migration of a mailserver from tobit David to Microsoft Exchange. In David there are distribution rules which assign mail addresses to mailboxes. Those distribution rules can't be migrated to Exchange though so I have to transfer those distribution rules to additional mail addresses in the various mailboxes. The kicker is that the database is written so poorly that I can't insert all of the addresses because apparently the data field in the database has a friggin' hard limit of 128 characters - yes, characters, not entries... :blink:

ELI5 here please.

I’m assuming it‘s the old database that’s poorly written, but what’s stopping you from extracting the data from it and feeding it to a newer and better made database?
 
It's an internal database of the mailserver, you can't just replace it. Besides, the mailserver will be migrated in the near future anyway so it would be forlorn hope even if it would be possible. We can work around it by appending the addresses manually after we migrate the mailboxes, but it would have been better to have the distribution rules empty before the migration.
 
So today I found these nice little lines/cracks on the back of my work laptop, seemingly exactly where the hinges sit. Less pronounced but same story also for the metal frame that runs round the edges. Wtf Lenovo?
C0BE5DB9-6E5C-4B75-8234-4985D2617791.jpeg
 
One of my Ardunio boards died yesterday, it's been running for 11 months I suppose but I would expect a solid-state device to last longer. It's the one that remotely turns my LED clock and RPi/Inky combo on and off so that's now deaded. Don't have a spare at the moment. :(
 
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