Once in a while we have a little fun at the office. Here’s our latest, the new and improved I.T. Suggestion Box, digital in all forms including the well placed “Easy” button provided by Staples.

Officer Symbolic Link says he is “not the real hero”. Rather, Officer Symbolic Link said that Linux Torvald and Solaris were “the ones who [we] should be thanking” for the saving of Mr. Linux from almost certain data corruption and death.

The incident happened in the Down Town File Systems area known to town citizens as “EXT3″. An operator for Open Source Organization wishing to remain anonymous commented that he was “glad to see Linux safe and sound with as few shards of duplicates as possible”. Linux had been running stable in EXT3 for many months until yesterday evening, shortly after Peak Network Traffic Hour had passed, when he noticed someone copying him in every bit immediately behind him. Continue Reading

A very popular addon extension for Mozilla Firefox, Video DownloadHelper, allows users to easily save and convert media originally embedded into web content into a file stored on their local machine for offline playback.

Typically when software publishers desire to make their works available online, whether for free or for a fee, they seek to publish legal documentation for inclusion of the application clearly indicating that the program is copyrighted, and to identify their terms and conditions of modification to their work by third parties, including any limitations or bounds set by them. Continue Reading

Kayako Support Suite

When you need something bad enough, you can typically figure out how to get it. When it comes to modifying MySQL table data, it shouldn’t be too hard to work on. However when you’re working with a database that grows by thousands of entries per day, and goes back 5+ years, you’re talking about a lot of data to try and sort through, especially when you don’t know where to start looking and aren’t familiar with the table structure.

That said, I originally thought I made a mistake by merging two unrelated tickets together inside of Kayako’s Support Suite ticket system, a $500 web application that helps in organizing client support requests and staff responses. I thought that I had accidentally merged two tickets which each contained confidential information belonging to each respective client. Knowing that the PHP based application, Support Suite stores data in an SQL database, I had the idea that if I could get information on the general table structure for the Kayako Support Suite program, I’d be able to locate the data and modify it. With that, I contacted Kayako’s support team. I find it a little ironic, that here is a company who makes software for management of support, yet their support team seems to be lacking some much needed management of themselves. The following is a transcript of my short but frustrating encounter with their support team representative, representing the brand, name, and integrity of Kayako. Let’s see how supportive they are!

Paramvir Singh: Thank you for contacting Kayako. How may I assist you?
Tanner: Hello. How do I split a ticket I accidentally merged of a client’s?
Tanner: two unrelated clients / issues, I just put in the wrong ticket ID when merging
Paramvir Singh: This feature is not available now
Tanner: well, there needs to be a way to do it
Tanner: I have two tickets with confidential information in them, that both users can see
Tanner: how can I fix that
Paramvir Singh: I apologize but this feature is not available right now
Tanner: I can edit the MySQL database manually right?
Tanner: that’s a solution?
Paramvir Singh: We do not provide support for code modification
Tanner: Nobody said code modification. I said MySQL database changes.
Tanner: what is the table structure, where do I need to look.
Paramvir Singh: You may check it from ERD diagram under help folder in product .tar file
Paramvir Singh: which you may download from members area

For software creators of support software, their support stinks to say the least. I can’t seem to say I’ll be supporting them in the future with continued business with them.

So I’ve sold a few automobiles that I’ve owned before, and as listing an automobile online gives you great exposure to potential buyers, it also gives you great exposure to, well, wishful thinkers (to say the least).

I’ve had a lot of strange offers before. Someone once offered in all seriousness to trade my $12,000 Supra for a $500 Chevy S10 that was rusting out the nose. Pfft!

Well, this one just came in minutes ago for my Toyota MR2. So far, it takes the cake.

Name: Stifo Bililgne
Stifo Bililgne
Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:47 AM

hey, i saw your MR2, it looks pretty good on the outside, not sure bout the inside tho, but the price sounds pretty good i’ll see wut my dad thinks cause he’s the one buyin it. Im interested in the car but for certain reasons, it might take me a FEW MONTHS to buy it, so i just have one little request.. Can you PLEASE just like put it on hold for me thats all i ask, i live right here in N. Logan so PLEASE just keep it on hold for me.. u think u can do that? text me or email me back. thanks bro.

Well, there you have it folks. Yes, I think I’ll hold the car for you Scuba Stifo. Perhaps I’ll even throw in a rear view mirror air freshener to freshen the deal up a tad bit. Let me know when you’re finally ready to purchase the vehicle, and I’ll throw in the entire redwood forest, rather than just the cardboard pine tree shaped air freshener. What a bargain, I think this deal is too sweet to pass up. It’s a good thing you’ve got a few months to drool over it. I’m sure by that time you’ll be needing a few air fresheners if smell anything like your spelling… and your spelling stinks!