Google Photos: Batch Delete Albums

As I moved all my photos away from Google Photos to my self-hosted Immich instance, I needed a possibility to delete all photos and albums from Google Photos.

To delete all photos, there is an API call available so you could write a script to do that. Or you can just use this Chrome plugin (works also in MS Edge).

However, there seems to be no possibility to batch delete all the remaining empty albums from Googel Photos. There is just no API call and therefore no possibility to script that.

As I did not want to manually delete, click by click, all my over 200 albums, I created a small, quick & dirty script for Autohotkey:

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Thunderbird and Outlook IMAP/SMTP

I tried to get Thunderbird working with Outlook.com mail. Thunderbird automatically recognizes the server information for Outlook.com and also that you need OAuth2 authentication.

IMAPS was working afterwards, but I was unable to send mails via the SMTP server “smtp-mail.outlook.com” which Thunderbird automatically used. I checked with this Microsoft site and everything seemed to be ok.

It took me some time to find out that the server “smtp-mail.outlook.com” does not seem to support OAuth2 authentication.

I set up my account in Thunderbird again, but this time I used the manual option. I entered the IMAP data mentioned in the above Microsoft link but used “smtp.office365.com” as SMTP server name.

This did the trick. Afterwards I was able to send mails from Thunderbird again.

Fallstricke beim GMX FreePhone-Tarif

Der kostenlose GMX-FreePhone-Tarif mit 3GB hört sich ja eigentlich gar nicht so schlecht an. Leider scheint GMX das Angebot immer weiter zu verschlechtern. Zuerst wurde die Datenautomatik von Beginn an eingeschaltet und musste manuell deaktiviert werden (sonst wird nach Verbrauch der 3GB automatisch kostenpflichtig nachgebucht) und jetzt muss man außerdem an mindestens 10 Tagen im Monat die GMX-App öffnen und mindestens die Inbox aktualisieren. Macht man das nicht, werden für diesen Monat dann jeweils 2,99 EUR fällig.

Der 3 GB GMX FreePhone eSIM-Handytarif ist dauerhaft kostenlos, so lange Sie die GMX Mail-App an mindestens 10 Tagen pro Monat aktiv nutzen (aktive Nutzung bedeutet mind. den GMX Mail Posteingang zu aktualisieren). Konkret: In den ersten 12 Monaten beträgt die Grundgebühr immer 0,- €, danach wird eine monatliche Grundgebühr in Höhe von 2,99 € nur in den jeweiligen Vertragsmonaten berechnet, in denen die GMX Mail-App nicht oder an weniger als 10 Tagen aktiv genutzt wurde.

Ich hatte mir den Tarif als Zweit-SIM zugelegt, werde aber aufgrund dieses Geschäftsgebarens den Tari jetzt wieder kündigen. Ich habe keine Lust andauernd nachzuschauen, was für Spezialitäten die sich haben wieder neu einfallen lassen.

Finanzielle Bildung

Da ich öfters einmal um Rat gefragt werde, wie man am Besten für das Alter vorsorgen kann, gerade im Hinblick auf immer unsichere gesetzliche Rentenzahlungen, liste ich hier einmal einige Links auf, die ich als Einstieg empfehlen kann und die mir in der Vergangenheit sehr viel weitergeholfen haben:

Finanztip
Finanztip-Youtube-Channel
Finanztip Academy

e-Paper zur Altersvorsorge

Finanzfluss
Finanzfluss-Youtube-Channel

Gerd Kommer: Souverän investieren für Einsteiger: Wie Sie mit ETFs ein Vermögen bilden

Ich kann nur jedem empfehlen, hier mal reinzuschauen. Es ist wirklich nicht schwer, das Thema Finanzen und Geldanlage selbsr anzugehen und es ist auf alle Fälle besser, als sich “professionelle” Hilfe bei seinem Bankberater zu suchen. Weil der ist eigentlich ja auch nur ein Verkäufer und wird Dir natürlich das empfehlen, wo er die beste Provision kassieren kann.

Upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 11 on a non-supported PC

Windows 11 can officially only be installed on computers which meet the Microsoft system requirements. Older PCs often do either not have an officiall supported processor or does not have TPM installed. On these computers the Windows 11 setup program cannot be run.

However there is a method how you can upgrade to Windows 11 also on these computers. Here are the steps how to do this:

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My first POTA activation

Today I did my first POTA (Parks on the Air) activation. There is a POTA location (DE-0238 Wilhelmsbad State Park) just 4 km away from my home so I gave it a try.

The conditions were not so well today, but I made 21 SSB contacts in 2 hours with one DX contact to Canada. My equipment was my Elecraft KX2 with 10 Watts and a C-Whip monoband vertical antenna (one for 40m, one for 20m) with a mag mount on my car. In addition I used a magentic pad to get a better grounding.

On 40m it was very difficult because there were some QRM with almost S9 on the whole band so I switched soon to 20m.

You can find out more of this location on the official website.

Thank you to all hunters today!

Live is too short for QRP :-)

1 Year, 10 Watts and an endfed wire …

I am surprised what you can do with QRP if the band conditions are going up to the sun spot maximum … It is really fun to work only with 10 Watts.

Green spots: SSB
Yellow spots: Digital Modes (FT8,FT4,RTTY,VarAC)

The longest SSB distance was 9205 km with PP1WW in Brazil.
The longest DIGITAL distance was 18322 km with ZL2TNB in New Zealand.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1: USB-C ports no longer working

I had the issue that the USB-C ports on my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 all of a sudden did no longer work. I tried everything like removing the latest driver updates, reinstalling all the Lenovo drivers, did a BIOS reset etc.

Nothing helped.

I then did a battery reset (there is a small hole at the bottom of the ThinkPad which you need to press with a small pin) and voila: Everything worked again …

So if you have a similar issue, try that before sending your ThinkPad back to Lenovo for a mainboard replacement 😉

CQ World Wide DX Contest SSB

Yesterday I took part in one of he biggest radio amateur contests “CQ World Wide DX Contest” which runs for 48h. However I did not take part full time :-). There were some times with high electromagnetic storms so the conditions sometimes were not so good.

As one of my neighbours insists that I have to take down my end fed random wire antenna mounted on a 10m fishing pole, I tested a replacement for my antenna during this contest. I set up an end fed half wave antenna (20 m long) mounted as inverted V with the middle of the antenna in a tree (about 6 m over the ground). Now the antenna is completely invisible and hopefully there is no one who can complain now. I need some more experience until I can say if the antenna performs better or worse than before, but the firsts tests this weekend were promising.

Here are my results of the contest:

CQ World Wide DX Contest SSB