How to Get Pikachu as Your First Pokémon in Pokémon Go

Don’t want to be stuck with the default choices for your starting Pokémon in Pokémon Go? Eager to capture Pikachu, the most famous of all the Pokémon? Never fear! Read on for the hidden secret of how to get Pikachu as your first Pokémon in this exciting new game.

By now, you’ve heard of Pokémon Go. This long-anticipated game raced up to the top of the app store charts on its first day of release and has dominated the news in the past week. Sometimes for not so great reasons.

When you start the game, you normally have the choice between three different Pokémon characters to capture. They are:

• Bulbasaur
• Charmander
• Squirtle

All three are solid choices, but there’s a secret way that you can start with Pikachu at the beginning instead of the other three. Here’s your step-by-step guide on how to do it.

Note: you’ll need to do this with a new account. You can start a new account by signing out of your current game and then signing up again using a new Pokémon Trainer Club account or by using a different Google account.

1. Once you have established a new account, you should end up at the starting map screen where you see three Pokémon to choose from. Don’t select any of them.
2. Next, just take a walk. Yes, it’s really that easy. Walk away from the three Pokémon and in a short time, they’ll disappear from the screen and “reset,” appearing again close to your new location.
3. Your next step? You guessed it. Keep on walking. Just walk away from Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. You’re after the prize of Pikachu.
4. Repeat this process about four or five times. Ignore and walk away.
5. Eventually, a fourth Pokémon will join the other three on your screen. At long last, Pikachu has appeared.

There he is! Pikachu will appear on the map after four or five “resets.”

6. From here, simply tap on Pikachu and the Pokémon Go capture screen will appear. Tap and swipe the Poké Ball in Pikachu’s direction to capture him.
7. Congratulations! You now have Pikachu as the first Pokémon in your collection!
8. Now, complete your account sign-up as normal and you’re off in running in the world of Pokémon Go with the trusty Pikachu by your side.

Your starting Pikachu isn’t very powerful, but who cares? It’s Pikachu!

Your starting Pikachu won’t be especially powerful (typically you get a CP 11 version), but there’s something very rewarding and nostalgic about beginning the game with him instead of one of the others.

By Scott Arpajian

http://features.en.softonic.com/how-to-get-pikachu-as-your-first-pokemon-in-pokemon-go?utm_source=ios_apps&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=62410&utm_content=deal-how+to+get+pikachu+as+your+first+pok%c3%&utm_term=role-playing-games_miscellaneous&emn_item=5433497&emn_nwl=2111957

Pokemon Go guide

What are Pokemon, and how do you play Pokemon Go? Our just-the-FAQs guide to Pokemon Go will get you started finding and training your own pocket monsters.

   

Pokemon Go (Android, iOS) has become summer's smash-hit app, propelling teams of traditionally chair-bound gamers out to track and trap elusive little pocket monsters. If you're feeling left behind, not having paid attention to Pokemon since the late '90s, our quick guide will get you caught up.

What is Pokemon?

A Pokemon, short for "pocket monster," is a fictional animated creature that can be captured, raised, and used to fight duels. You, as the Pokemon Trainer, capture and train your Pokemon to battle other Pokemon.

Pokemon the series started as video games in the mid-1990s, then expanded into films, cartoon series, and trading card games.

What is the object of Pokemon Go?

In this augmented-reality mobile game, you use your phone's camera and GPS to track and trap wild Pokemon as you move around in the real world.

How do you to track and trap wild Pokemon?

Move around until new Pokemon appear in your vicinity. If you're not paying attention, your phone may vibrate to alert you. Head out to a variety of locales to attract a diverse assortment of monsters. You may also use incense to lure them to you.

Once they're nearby, they'll appear in the Nearby Pokemon section, which notes how far away they are. To capture Pokemon, tap your Bag to pull out a Poke Ball, and a target ring will appear around the monster. Swipe to fling the ball at the Pokemon to capture it.

What are the items on your Pokemon Go map?

In our annotated map below, you can see, starting in the top-right corner and working clockwise:

1. The compass
2. A PokeStop
3. Nearby Pokemon
4. Main Menu
5. Profile Icon
6. The Pokemon Trainer
7. A Gym
   
   

How do you gather items?

As you walk around, your maps will display PokeStops. As you get close to one, tap it and then spin the Main Menu button (the center photo disc) to gain items, including PokeBall, Potion, Egg, and Revive.

How do you level up and earn achievements?

To increase your trainer level, you must amass experience points. Maximize your points by targeting a diverse group of Pokemon. To earn medals, keep hitting milestones, such as catching 10 flying-type Pokemon or registering 5 Pokemon in the Pokedex.

How do you hatch Pokemon eggs?

Hatching a Pokemon egg requires an egg Incubator. All players start with one reusable Incubator in their inventory. An egg placed inside will hatch after a certain distance (2 to 10km) is traversed by the trainer. The distance varies depending on the egg: the greater the distance, the rarer the Pokemon hatched.

How do you evolve your Pokemon?

Keep catching Pokemon of a particular species to earn candy specific to that species. To evolve your Pokemon, tap the Main Menu button in Map View, then the Pokemon button, and then select one Pokemon from your collection to evolve.

What teams can you join?

Upon reaching Level 5, players are asked to join one of three teams; Team Mystic (Blue), Team Valor (Red) and Team Instinct (Yellow). Picking a team means picking allies for future player vs player battles but has no effect on regular gameplay. Teams can battle each other to capture and control Gyms.

What are Gyms?

Gyms are special locations (usually noticeable landmarks in your area) where players from different teams can fight battles with their Pokemon. Capture and control Gyms, and you'll be rewarded with Pokecoins that can be spent on items in the game. Opposing teams can attempt to capture Gyms by battling and lowering the Prestige (health) of the Gym. Defending teams can assign their own Pokemon to guard a captured Gym against would-be invaders.

How do you train Pokemon?

Choose a single Pokemon to battle against another Pokemon in a friendly Gym. This training also earns you more experience points and increases the prestige of your Gym. 

Can you play with other people?

By joining teams, you can battle with other players and capture Gyms. Future updates may include trading Pokemon with other players and battling with friends. 

Is this game free to play?

Pokemon Go is free to play, with the option of using real money to purchase Pokecoin that you can trade for premium items. 

Are you experiencing Pokemon Go connection difficulties?

Niantic, the maker of the Pokemon Go game, says some users are experiencing connectivity issues that result in a lost connection to the Pokemon Go servers. Niantic said it is well aware of the issue and is working on it. If you experience odd game behavior, such as the disappearance of a collected or purchased item, Niantic recommends you log out of the game and then back in, and even restart your device to retrieve your missing item.

Is the game a battery drain?

Niantic says the game does significantly shorten battery life on some phones, and it is working on a fix.

What is Pokemon Go Plus?

Pokemon Go Plus is an add-on that you can wear as a bracelet. Through Bluetooth, it connects to your smartphone and alerts you when you're near a PokeStop or when a Pokemon is within reach, so you don't have to have your phone out all the time to play. Pokemon Go Plus is available for pre-order at GameStop [  http://www.gamestop.com/INTL/choose_site_all.html  ] for a July 31 release.

by Joshua Rotter

http://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/pokemon-go-guide/?ttag=e415&ftag=TREf2961de&tag=nl.e415&s_cid=e415&ttag=e415&ftag=TREf2961de

Microsoft warns of new, self-propagating ransomware in the wild

Microsoft warns of new, self-propagating ransomware in the wild
A new version of ransomware, dubbed Ransom:Win32/ZCryptor.A, that is able to move itself from computer to computer is hitting Microsoft Windows users.

A new version of ransomware, dubbed Ransom:Win32/ZCryptor.A, that is able to move itself from computer to computer is hitting Microsoft Windows users.

Microsoft's Threat Research & Response blog issued an alert to its customers on 26 May warning them of the bug, which also goes by the name ZCryptor. The nastiest aspect of this piece of malware is its ability to reproduce and then spread to other systems through removable media devices, such as flash drives, as well as network drives. This capability is not often seen, noted Trend Micro researcher Michael Jay Villanueva.

“This ransomware is one of the few ransomware families that is capable of spreading on its own. It drops a copy of itself in removable drives, making use of USBs a risky practice,” he said in a research note on the ransomware.

Trend Micro gave ZCryptor an overall risk rating of critical with a high damage potential.

The ransomware has several methods of being injected into a computer. Microsoft noted it can be distributed via spam emails, macro malware or through fake Flash Player installers. When it tries to spread through removable storage devices it “drops autorun.inf in removable drives, a zycrypt.lnk in the start-up folder: %User Startup%\zcrypt.lnk along with a copy of itself as {Drive}:\system.exe and %appdata%\zcrypt.exe, and changes the file attributes to hide itself from the user in file explorer,” the Microsoft report said.

Once embedded and the files are encrypted a ransom note appears demanding 1.2 bitcoins, around $US500, for the decryption key. It gives the victim four days to comply and then boosts the payment to five Bitcoins.

This article originally appeared at scmagazineuk.com  by Doug Olenick

Read more: http://www.scmagazineuk.com/new-ransomware-has-worm-like-ability/article/499437/#ixzz4AIPjlSjT

Make backups of your browser and email client

The majority off users make use of the browsing history, bookmarks or favorites and the option to remember passwords. On more than one occasion it can be very useful to be able to take with us this information that makes up our user profile.

  To do so we have MailBrowserBackup, a simple free utility that makes a complete backup of your browser or client so that you will be able to take it anywhere to update your favorite browser or email client.

  The main features of MailBrowserBackup are:
- Make backups.
- Support for the majority of browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer (only saves favorites), Opera (both the browsing and the email profiles), Safari, Google Chrome and Flock.
- Support for the most important email and instant messaging clients: Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Messenger Plus!, Outlook 2003/2007, Mozilla Thunderbird, Pidgin, etc.
- Compatible with other programs like FileZilla FTP Client, Windows Calendar or Notepad++.

  If you want a backup of your user profiles, to keep them safe in case your PC has any errors, and that also allows you to port them to any computer.

 Download MailBrowserBackup.
http://mailbrowserbackup.en.malavida.com/

ThunderFix

Thunderfix is a small tool that can fix Mozilla Thunderbird performance. If you have more GB of emails stored in Thunderbird and if you are experiencing slow start time, slow navigation through email folders, you might try Thunderfix. What Thunderfix does is that it detects *.msf files within your Thunderbird profile and removes them. After that, you can run Thunderbird and wait for new MSF files to be generated and you’ll see the improvement. With time MSF files become corrupted and can contain garbage, so this is quick solution for the problem. This way, the program runs smoothly and faster. If you want to read more about this issue and see how this tool works, check out this article. It supports version 2.0, but may work with older versions too. Use it at your own risk.

How to use it

    Close Mozilla Thunderbird.
    Choose your Thunderbird profile you with to fix (if you have only one profile, in most cases that is “default” profile).
    Thunderfix will count MSF files and will display the number below the profile name.
    Click “Fix profile” button.

http://www.parhelia-tools.com/products/thunderfix/thunderfix.aspx

What Windows 10 Knows About You

Windows 10 collects astonishing amounts of information about its users, with Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 to follow the trend with newly published Windows Updates. The following information is collected and transmitted to Microsoft:
windows 10 Privacy fix

    Everything you type on the keyboard (effectively, Windows 10 comes with a built-in keylogger)
    Wiretapping: Windows 10 can listen to your microphone and engage your webcam in background without you even knowing (no, this is not a hoax)
    Logins and passwords to Web sites, social networks
    Fragments of email messages, chats and text messages (including those you send and receive via crypto-messengers such as Telegram)
    Your geolocation coordinates (GPS, AGPS or approximate IP-based coordinates)
    Your complete Web browsing history
    Your search queries
    Wi-Fi access points and their passwords
    List of installed applications
    Information about your listening preferences including the names of music tracks you’re listening
    Call logs
    Your calendar entries, events and meetings
    Your address book
    BitLocker escrow keys: if you encrypt your hard drive or eMMC memory with BitLocker, recovery keys are automatically uploaded to Microsoft OneDrive; Microsoft Privacy Policy allows the company disclosing those keys to government agencies by request
    Future Windows 10 updates are rumoured to disable features if the system discovers what it considers to be “incompatible” or “unlicensed” software or hardware components

Privacy Protector for Windows 10

There is no easy way of completely disabling the tracking features of Windows. Even if you disable all the tracking features in the Privacy applet of the new Control Panel, Windows 10 will still keep collecting and transmitting many types of data.

To help you fix Windows 10 privacy issues, we developed an all-in-one tool. Privacy Protector for Windows 10 allows you to disable select or all tracking services found in Windows 10 and delivered to Windows 8.1, 8 and Windows 7 with updates. Privacy Protector for Windows 10 does the following things to stop Windows 10 tracking:
windows 10 Privacy fix

    Deletes or disables Telemetry
    Clears and disables DiagTrack Log
    Stops, blocks or removes over 37 tracking services, including tracking activities discovered in the following Windows services:
        Cortana background tracking services
        Media Center
        Customer Experience Improvement Program
        Power Efficiency Diagnostics
        Family Safety Monitor
        Office ClickToRun Service Monitor
        Application Experience
        Office Telemetry
        Disk Diagnostic
        Media Center
        Windows Search
    Disables Keylogger, preventing Microsoft from collecting information you type on your keyboard
    Disables Windows Defender.
    Disables Cortana to prevent background collection and transmission of data recorded with your microphone and webcam
    Disables Windows Update, allowing you blocking unwanted updates
    Selectively rolls back certain Windows Updates enabling tracking features (for Windows 10, 8.1, 8, and Windows 7)
    Disables certain Telemetry and tracking modules in Microsoft Office 2016
    Optionally blocks Microsoft Office updates
    Enables users to uninstall OneDrive
    Enables disabling Bing Search
    Enables uninstalling built-in and non-removable Metro and Universal applications, releasing RAM and effectively stopping additional tracking performed by these applications
    Enables the ability to remove all Metro and Universal applications, effectively bringing your Windows 10 installation as close to Windows 7 as at all possible (you’ll have to download the old Calculator app though)
    Allows reinstalling Windows 7-8 Picture Viewer
    Blocks more than 60 Microsoft IP addresses engaged in user activity tracking on host level (by modifying the hosts file)
    Blocks IP addresses from the tracking network by creating Windows Firewall rules
    Automatically creates a Restore Point before making changes to the system
    Most Privacy Fixes can be reverted if required
    Some Privacy Fixes cannot be reversed even via System Recovery

http://www.softorbits.com/windows-10-privacy-protector/thanks.html

How to identify phishing mail.

Mails with serious content in an official tone, final notices or seemingly technical issues are enough to unsettle most readers.
Often, this is an attempt at cheating you out of your money. How can you catch on to the scammers, where do they give themselves away? The first step is to realize that your personal information is already in the wrong hands. Phishing schemes are designed to confuse and trigger hasty actions.

How do hackers manage to steal your information?

Phishing mails seem twice as credible when they already contain the correct name, address and even your bank information. This information can come from various sources. Maybe one of the companies you recently dealt with was hacked. Entire collections of stolen user profiles are available for sale on the dark web, the part of the Internet that requires specific software and authorization that is frequently used by criminals. Have you ever had a Trojan on your PC? This type of malware collects your every input and can create extensive user profiles. Have you recently participated in an online raffle or similar offers that require you to provide your personal data? Hosters of free services finance their offers through the sale of customer data sets among other things. It pays to think twice before you give away your real name, address and bank information. It's easy to change your email address but your place of residence or your bank account? Not so much.

How to identify phishing mails.

Look for irregularities. Did the sender write to you before? What about spelling and syntax? For example, many scammers use Google Translate to create mails in foreign languages. These mails contain valid words but in weird combinations. As native speakers, your bank, PayPal or whoever supposedly wrote them usually do much better.

That's the essence common to many phishing mails. Unless you're facing bankruptcy or love to collect final notices no respectable company will write to you in this manner. This pressure is built up to make you act rashly, give away your data or make that urgent transfer. But frozen bank accounts and property seizures are always the last resort and don't happen over night. So stay calm, think and contact the companies mentioned through regular channels (phone / email). Don't use the contact address provided in the mail as this may lead you to other criminals that will try to convince you of its validity.
Online banking is often the focus of criminal actions

No bank requires your data, PINs or TANs! Whenever you're prompted to input your user name, password or even transaction codes, something's fishy. The authors of such emails are crafty in finding new reasons for you to "confirm", "verify" or input data for "further processing". Your bank already has all the information otherwise you wouldn't be able to log into your account in the first place. Scammers also like to pretend that your account has been suspended or hacked. Again: Call your bank and sort things out. If a wave of spam mails is under way, your bank will most likely clear this up with you quickly.

Don't open attachments and don't click on any links if you're uncertain about their contents! Even good antivirus software cannot provide 100% protection against all Trojans and other malware. Very popular: Links hidden in a PDF document (e.g. to display the status of your package delivery) that will lead to a download link for a Trojan so the original attachment is clean but the link target is not. Bad!

It's unlikely that you're the first to receive this mail. Numerous sites deal with this topic and provide up to date examples. If you find weird phrases simply copy them into Google Search. In all likelihood, you will quickly discover fellow users with the same problem so the issue gets resolved soon.

Scammers are currently using a new scheme on Facebook. Using fake profiles that resemble those of your friends, users will ask you for your cellphone number. Instead of a message, you will receive an SMS with a code. While you're still trying to make sense of this, your "friend" will then ask you for that code. If successful, you will be charged for the message by common payment providers such as PayPal, Buy with Mobile or their offspring Zong on your next cellphone bill. Solution: Adjust your privacy settings so that only your friends can view your list of Facebook contacts.

Does the mail contain links? Simply hover your mouse over them, don't click. Most email applications will already display the link target this way. Make sure it's the right company and pay attention to every detail as scammers tend to use addresses that are very similar to the originals.

If you're willing to dig a little deeper into the technical details, you may also want to analyze the email header. Because what is usually simply displayed as a name in our email applications contains a lot more information than that! Visit iptrackeronline for further details.

Still uncertain? Visit the company site the mail supposedly refers to (before you open any attachments or click on any links in the mail!) and log in as usual. Whether it's your bank, Amazon or PayPal, if the mail is legitimate, you will find similar messages or notifications in your user account. If there aren't any feel free to delete the mail.

You see, the best security system still sits between your ears! Be vigilant and stay calm when you receive mails you can't immediately make heads or tails of. Run a full virus scan. Most Trojans will be detected and eliminated by your antivirus program. Modern online banking methods, alert users and good antivirus applications are making it harder for these phishing attacks to work yet the yearly damages caused are estimated to be in the billions.

Sven Krumrey
https://blog.ashampoo.com/en/2016-03-01/the-devil-is-in-the-details-how-to-identify-phishing-mails?utm_source=ashampoo&utm_medium=automail&utm_content=the-devil-is-in-the-details-how-to-identify-phishing-mails&utm_campaign=blog