HM2K

For the past few weeks I have been mostly working on eTicket.

eTicket is an open source Support Ticket System based on osTicket.

The reason eTicket exists is because no further development has occurred on osTicket since 2005, and unfortunately there were some major flaws found in osTicket.

Over time, many users of osTicket reported many of the known bugs onto the osTicket Forums, this made it very easy to figure out what the problems were and how to overcome them.

I myself had discovered some issues with osTicket and already coded some solutions. With this in mind I decided to take on osTicket as my own, and add the appropriate fixes and modifications.

There were some restrictions with working on eTicket from osTicket, this was the database structure. This is due to the fact that I understood that one of the most important things to users was that they would want to upgrade from osTicket to eTicket, the easiest way of achieving this was to keep the database structure the same and simply changing the files.

eTicket is now at the point where there are no known problems or bugs, the only issues that remain are features that require changes to the database structure (such as additional tables).

I hope to continue working on eTicket indefinitely.

I get asked quite often if I know how to get a mobile phone unlocked, so this is my experience…

I was given a Motorola V525 as the original owner had an upgrade. They are on the vodafone network, and I am on O2.

When I put an O2 simcard in the phone it asked me to “Enter Subsidy Password” (other phones may say “Enter Special Code”), I tried a few random numbers (probably about 15 by the time I had finished), and the phone locked up. Displaying the following: “Contact Service Provider”, and it will not go away.

However, there is a solution I found at: http://www.gsm-unlock.com/unlock/unlock-motorola.html

Q: I keep getting the following prompt on my Motorola after I insert another sim card “Contact Service Provider” ?
A: That means wrong unlock code has been entered already!
(This message appears after many wrong subsidy or special code entry)
Power on phone and wait between 30 min to 8 hours till Enter Subsidy or Special Code
message appear again! (Please note that phone should be powered on during this time).

I left it turned on, and charging over night, and came to it the following day, it asked me for the unlock code.

After reading this forum I discovered that you CANNOT unlock the Razr V3, or V525 or any other Motorola simply by providing someone with your IMEI code.

As far as I can see there are only THREE ways around this:
1. You need a datacable (~$10) and MotoPhoenix ($25) — It seems this guy here has achieved it using a datacable and some choice software…
2. Contact your phone carrier/operator or service provide (O2, Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile, etc) and ask them for the unlock code, like this guy did.

They will ask you for the following details:

Mobile Telephone Number:
Customer Account Number:
Full Name:
Full Address:
Date of Birth:

Make:
Model:
IMEI:

3. The third way involves using buy methods, such as buying from ebay, gsm-unlock.com or fonefunshop.co.uk, but as these methods are completly untested (by me), and they don’t tell you how it works, I wouldn’t advise them.

I used method 2, and after a few emails back and forth, and a phone call from the previous owner, I was provided with 2 unlock codes and told that one of them would work.

I have since then used the same method again with Vodafone ([email protected]) for a Motorola V3X, this time I simply put a request for the unlock code, and provided them with the details (as above), within 3 hours I had a reply from them, as follows:

NETWORK UNLOCK CODE

Good Afternoon Mr. XXX,

Thank you for your email to Vodafone about the network unlock code (NUC) you requested. I’ll be happy to assist. Your NUC is as follows:

I hope this information is of use. Please contact me if you require any further assistance.

Best wishes,

Neil Breeze
Vodafone Customer Services

This worked no problems, so I sent an email back to them congratulating them on their quick response, which makes a change.

http://www.hm2k.org/news/1139531105.html

I’ve done my research and i’ve discovered there’s only 6 Operating Systems that I would ever need to use.

For your workstations

• At the office: Windows
  • I would choose this in almost all businesses as often they require the ability to run windows based applications.
  • In many business environments windows is required to be a client on their network, meaning you are unable to use their network if you are using Linux or a Mac based system.
• The developer: Ubuntu Linux (free)
  • I would choose this for developers as it’s quick, stable and allows you easy interfacing with developer tools and services running on Linux based systems.
  • This platform can also be ideal for the future of technology due to the fact it is free and that due to the way technology is heading before long all you will need to use your applications is a web browser.
• The designer: Mac OS X
  • This is a good stable and compatible platform for graphic design applications, ideal for graphics designers.
  • Generally the graphics applications you see on Windows appear on Mac first. This was often the case with Adobe/Macromedia products.

For your servers

• Web/Mail/Database Server: CentOS
  • Based on Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) this product is designed to deal with the enterprise market offering you real performance, the real difference between CentOS and RHEL is that CentOS is free.
  • The reason why I would choose CentOS is that because it is based on a Redhat product its very compatible with available applications meaning you get them first. It is also very easy to use.
  • Another great aspect of this is that unlike Fedora there’s no product life cycle.
  • The final attribute of CentOS is it’s great community.
• Game Server: debian
  • I find that the game server applications run best on debian. This is probably the only reason I would use it.
• IRC/Shell Server: FreeBSD
  • The main reason for this is because its so well received by the IRC community, and offers great compatibility for IRC applications.
  • This OS also offers the ability to use “Jailing”, which was an important aspect before the ability of creating “virtual servers” on Linux existed.

For more information check out the Comparison of operating systems on the Wikipedia

I have been looking for a good open source or free cross platform (windows/linux) editor that has php and html syntax highlighting.

A simple request I thought, I guess not…

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I get asked this question time and time again. People seem to believe that the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) will help with their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Well, does it?

The short answer is no. The long answer is as follows…

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