Playing with pligg

So I had this idea for a small (i guess) project which uses a digg like voting system. So I installed the pligg cms and tried playing with it for some time and after two days I decided to go with its well known drupal based competitor drigg. Of course pligg is a good cms and I don't necessarily mean to suggest that anyone shouldn't use it. But it was a little too messed up. Atleast for me. :-|

The things I didn't like in pligg includes the not so clean code, which requres to change dozen places when you need to do something as simple as switching a theme, The not so active development of the cms, unlike drupal which has a very powerful developer base. The not so open karma calculation, which obviously gonna be a PITA later on. And the not so friendly user support which is "known" not to listen to its users :P (which I did NOT experience btw)
So I switched to drigg and I'm glad I did :) it's drupal based and you can feel the cleanliness of the code :) of course if you choose to do the manual installation it takes some time to configure the the modules needed to get drigg up and running, And you're gonna need to know the basics of drupal, but it's all fun and I don't think it would be that hard to learn, even if you are completely new to drupal.

So now I'm tweaking the site and I might write a post on getting drupal+drigg up if I have enough time. And yes! of course I'll reveal the project i'm working :P and if you people have any interest in Free Software you might even like it heehee. but that's yet to see... ;)

How to Unlock the Huawei E220 HSDPA modem

Huawei e220 or Vodafone e220 is the HSDPA modem we usually get from Dialog Telecom or Mobitel GSM (probably from Airtel) when we purchase a mobile broadband connection. But usually it's operator locked, so we can't switch between networks when the current ISP starts treating us like dust, If you've read my previous post you know I have my reasons to unlock the Huawei e220 modem I got from Dialog Telecom. Here I'm gonna explain how I did that and I'll try to be as simple as I can. But Feel free to ask for help if u need any.


Disclaimer: I’m not responsible, nor will be held liable, for anything you do with the information I provide in this tutorial. Use it at your own risk.

Ok, since we are done with the traditional "Disclaimer" Lets see what you have to do.

First you'll have to download the following tools.
e220 CardLock UnLocker
e220 Updater version 11.117.09.04.00
QC Mobile Analysis Tool
And a Hex editor. But if you do it correctly you can do it with an ordinary text editor too ;)

Or you can download and extract this file (to be uploaded). It contains all the tools we need for the job, including a lightweight portable hex editor :)

Basically, Unlocking the e220 is simple as running the E220 CardLock Unlock tool and entering the unlock code and pressing the "Ok" button. But that's when you "know" the unlock code.


So how do we find the unlock code for our modem? that's where the other tools come in handy.

Plug your modem to the computer and run the E220 Updater. Wait till it detects your modem and then press the "Cancel" button. yes! Cancel it! This is just to make it easier for the "real tool" to identify the modem.

Now open the QC BQS Analyzer and click on Hardware forensics menu, select Use Com/USB Port


Now the "QC Com Diag" window should be open. Most of the time your modem and com port is automatically selected on the Serial Com port drop down list. If not you'll have to select it manually. And then click on the "Send Cmd" button and wait till the message "Successfully sent command" appears on the bottom right.

Now Select " Read EFS" from the Diag Functions drop down menu and Click the "Lets go" button. When it asks, enter the file name e220.bin and save it. A message saying "Successfully read EFS" should appear.

Now its time to do some hex reading :) Open the e220.bin file from your Hex Editor. And search for the ASCII string Sd, (including the comma) or Search for the for the Hex string 53 64 2c
After few random characters you'll see a clean 8 digit code. Believe me, it's easily recognizable and guess what! thats our Unlock code :D
Once you've found the unlock key all you have to do is enter it on the CardLock Unlock utility and click "OK" And your modem is... Unlocked!!! :D

Hope this will be helpful. I'd absolutely love to know your views on this. Good luck with unlocking your modems :)
-seejay

Why I unlocked my HSDPA modem (and why you should too)

As usual it's old news to my twitter followers that I've unlocked my Huawei e220 HSDPA modem I bought with the Mobile Broadband connection from Dialog Telecom. It was operator locked and could only be used with Dialog. Well I must say that I loved mobile broadband. I absolutely loved the fact that I had internet access wherever I go. But unfortunately Dialog has been doing everything possible to ruin that amazing experience. When I got this connection they promised 3.6mbps but I've never ever experienced anything more than 1mbps with this. And sometimes the DNS servers get messed making the connection totally unusable.

"Well, they'll improve the quality of the service eventually and we'll have a good speed one day" that's what I thought, but boy was I wrong.

Few weeks back I found that Dialog has officially "changed" the speed of the mobile broadband to 1mbps, It was changed on their web site too. But wait! Then what about the connection I purchased? what about the so called "very very fast" (hilarious! I know! but that's how they advertised it :p) Internet connection which was supposed to be 3.6mbps???
What came to my mind for the first time was "WTF! who do they think we are? how do they expect to get away with this???" well answer is simple. They perfectly knew that there's no way they can provide 3.6mbps speed but they LIED! why? why not? They are the *all mighty* Dialog Telecom, and we are just helpless customer fuckNuts.

"They've paid us already, So why bother, they can't switch to any other provider since it's operator locked" that's probably what the people at dialog must be thinking.
Well Dialog, I've got news for you, Anything which can be locked can be unlocked, at least it's true with the HSDPA modem you sold us :P And thats exactly what I did :P and now I own a fully functional Huawei e220 HSDPA modem :D

The Unlock process was pretty easy and, NO I didn't pay any money to any company to unlock it :P I did it my self after a fair bit of Googling (Thanks to opendns we can still brows the web which is almost impossible if you are using Dialog's crappy DNS servers :P if you are still using them you should seriously try http://opendns.com you're gonna luv me for suggesting it :P)

Anyway, the first question I got via twitter was "are you gonna switch to Airtel now?" My answer was "No!"

No, I won't be switching away from Dialog right now. Why? Simply because I've agreed to use this connection for 6 months and I will act according to that. Then why did I unlock this? Simple, After 6 months I'm free to do anything, but they know that I can't switch to any other network and use this modem so they DON'T CARE. But now, since I can switch between networks and still use the same modem, they know I will! and that's what keep these money hungry companies like Dialog from screwing the customers. And thats exactly why we all should do it! That will teach them a lesson to treat their customers with some respect.

There are lot of places to find ways to unlock the HSDPA modems. And my next post which I'll be writing tomorrow morning, will also be a how-to on unlocking Huawei e220 which is the most common HSDPA modem in Sri Lanka. Almost all my friends have this model so there's a good chance you have the same. Let me know If you have any other model. I'll always be happy to help.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not paid by Airtel or any other company or individual to take down Dialog telecom(LOL!) And this is not just about Dialog. This is true with Mobitel or even with Airtel. My point is that the customer should always have the freedom to switch to a network which offers good quality service. And If they don't offer that. We should fight for it! I just took the first step.

Using Huawei E220 HSDPA modem in GNU/Linux

If you've been following me on twitter you already know that I got a mobile broadband connection. But if you don't know it yet, thats a good reason you should follow me on twitter. Anyways! the modem I got with my connection is the Huawei E220, And I'm very happy to say that it works perfectly fine under GNU/Linux. I was actually planning to write a blog post on that but was busy by some projects done with our local kde developer siraj :) (nothing related to KDE by the way)

Few days back I stumbled upon a blog which the blog owner has written a post on switching to GNU/Linux. One of his consernce was getting his Huawei e220 working on Linux. Well, of course its a piece of cake, but I could risk a new linux user steping away from linux because he had a small prob with his 3g modem :P so wrote this comment on his blog to realize that I almost wrote a complete blog post on how to get it done. And decided that I should publish it on my blog so anyone else having problems with 3G connectivity on linux can solve them. so here goes my mini tutorial. Btw, I did some adjestments to it so it fits in.

*******************************

E220 works perfectly with wvdial on ubuntu Hardy Haron.
Here are the steps…
(1) Plug in the modem and run
sudo wvdialconf
(2) Then edit the wvdial.conf file…
sudo vim /etc/wvdial.conf Uncomment Username and Password lines in wvdial.conf and add the following to the end of the file "stupid mode = yes"
(3) Save the wvdial.conf
(4) run wvdial to get connected :)

If you are using ubuntu 8.10 then the Graphical Network Manager recognizes the modem and connects you within seconds.

I usually use kppp with my Slackware installation and it runs really well too. I prefer kppp over wvdial because it even logs the data usage of the modem.

*******************************

Thats all folks! if anyone needs help, I'm just a blog comment away, or just send me an @message on twitter and yes I'm the seejay on twitter.

~seejay~

Vote for Digg!

Hey guys, Time vote for Digg in the Open Web Awards and show the power of the Digg Nation!!!

read more | digg story

Wanna learn GIMP??? (!!!)

Me too!!! :D We gotta develop this web site for our Internet Techs&Apps module for this semester and I'm suppose to design a nice header and a logo for the site. Well, the whole site actually. I'll have to do all the coding but my other group members are doing a great job collecting required data drawing the layouts and stuff. That kinda stuff are the most difficult for me so I'm really REALLY thankful for them for not putting me in that hell.
But guess what! I suck at graphic designing :P well, not exactly. I just didn't have time (oh no! not the same old excuse again!) to spend for graphic designing. I'd say graphic designing is not my thing exactly. I haven't done much of Photoshop on my windo$ days either... But now that I have to do something for our project I thought it'd be nice to give GIMP a try. Hope it's gonna be easy coz I'm not addicted to evil propritery graphic designing tools such as... u know... photoshop (yep! i just said that! :D )
So I'm now hunting GIMP tutorials on the net and found these cool sites so far, which i'll add to my scrap book to use anytime i want (err... scrapbook??? well, thats another post hee hee...)

gimp-tutorials.net
gimp.org tutorials
youtub GIMP tutorials
gimpguru.org
gimp-tutorials.com

ok! thats all folks! feel free to let me know if you know any cool sites with nice tutorials for GIMP, i'll keep the Links section updated as i find more stuff.
~seejay~

Will this help???

OK! I'm not a blogger! seejay is not a blogger!! not anymore!!! :-S I can't believe I didn't blog from such a long time. And I can't think of any excuses other than plain laziness. It's not unfair to say my higher education is keeping me busy to some extend but I must admit I could've spend "some" time to blog. But apparently i haven't spend anytime at all :P . Is it because I don't find blogging as interesting as the early days coz of all those microblogging platforms such as twitter? Or is it because I personally find the blogger ui NOT as cool or fun to use as the WordPress interface which i've been using in the past couple of months??? I dunno. But if latter is the case, this is gonna fix it...
Some of you might remember the "Performancing" extension for Firefox right? For those who were wondering what the heack i am talking, it "was" a cool Firefox addon which you can use to post to your blog. Once installed it gives a nice ttext editor like interface within the Firefox window which you can post to your blog with just a click of a button. It really helped me to improve my blog posting "frequency" by cutting the time used to log in to the site every time i post.
But Performancing is no more, Now they have changed the name(and improved the features of course..) to "ScribeFire". Well, to be honest, this is old news, its been months if not ages since they've made the change. I had ScribeFire installed all the time and I used it to keep notes and stuff... Few minuits ago I came up with the idea of setting up scribefire to post to seejay.net and thats exactly what i did. Hope this will help me getting back my old blogger spirit.... This is the first post I'm posting with ScribeFire and will keep my fingers crossed to make me like this "not so new" way and become a real blogger again...