As people know, I do the odd bit of iPhone support.  Less so, since the 3G came out, as those aren’t really as good as the older 2G model for China purposes.

Today I had a query about SMS issues – a client couldn’t reliably send SMS’s.

As the iPhone is a standard GSM device, the usual not so publicised GSM commands work.
Dialing *#5005*7672# from the iPhone will tell you what the carrier prefers for their SMSC number.

Shanghai Telecom’s SMSC for my phone – an ancient 15 year old 139 number is +8613800210500

To set the SMSC, do:

**5005*7672*[number]#

eg

Dial

**5005*7672*+8613800210500#  to set the SMSC to the preferred number.
(To dial plus hold zero for a few seconds)

Hit Call.

Try send an SMS again, and voila, happiness.

Note that different providers here will probably use different SMSC’s – so those on China Unicom, or China Telecom will need to run the appropriate actions, and put in the appropriate relevant numbers.

Read more »

While I personally feel that a lot of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is hogwash, there are basic tenets to building well indexed sites.

The usual common sense ones apply –

• Making sure Page Titles are clear.
  Don’t forget to add relevant page descriptions to each page.
• Making sure that content is relevant.
  Lack of content is the number one issue most clients have.  They want to score highly in search engines, but they don’t have any relevant content.  This one is easy to solve, although it takes some time. Identify keywords that you want to be found by, and create content that includes those words.

  I also advise clients to take a look at their competition, and see who scores highly for the words that they want to be found under. Read more »

Computer Solutions participated in the yearly Chilli Cookoff at Bubba’s

We didn’t win, drat!, but we had a great time, and hope to participate next year also.

Lots of fun photo’s from the event over at www.sheed.com

Chilli Cookoff

I’ve just upgraded the webmail software on http://mail.computersolutions.cn to a new version of Roundcube.

Testing revealed no issues for myself, so its now live.

A few new features – check settings for more options that can be configured.  Remember to click Save (at the bottom of the page) if you change anything!

Complaints, comments below please.

Computer Solutions is not all website design, and IT support.
We also do a bit of artsy stuff too (although not as much as I’d like!).
As part of an internal “just for fun” project we’re doing, I bought a badge machine for the office.

Today saw the first set of badges produced, with a theme of Old 70’s era China, based on a post I saw at BoingBoing -> LP Cover Lover.

Without further ado, our first badges are below:

1RMB Coins sure are big 😉

and

为人民服务

The staff also made a set, but I think we can be saved from an image of Snoopy in blue.

Unless you look below 😉

Note that we’re now selling these, and more badges over at http://www.iwantone.cn

We’re also releasing another cool in-house designed product over there next week, so stay tuned!

After playing around with unlocked and Sim Unlocked 3G iPhones for the last 2 days for clients, I can categorically say that until the iPhone can be unlocked in software, don’t buy a locked one.

Currently the only 2 countries that have unlocked iPhones out of the box are Italy, and Hong Kong.
Australia iPhones can also be unlocked, but that requires payment to an Australian provider.

I can provide Italian iPhone 3G if people want, but the pricing is expensive compared to the locked US ones in the market.

I’ve tested 3 different sets of Sim Unlocks for the 3G, and all of them have quirks that render them useless if you want full functionality like syncing in iTunes etc.

So, until the iPhone 3G is unlocked I recommend don’t buy a US one.

For China, the 2G is a better phone, its a shame Apple doesn’t make them anymore, and all thats in the market here is second hand.

For clients with iPhones – our mail system fully supports the iPhone, I use mine to get mail without issues.

We also provide firmware upgrade service and hacking for iPhones 2G, and 3G if clients need it.

For those of you who like to DIY, we have a iPhone site at http://www.iphonesim.cn

Firmware files, and iPhone hacking tools are on there.

I wrote this for a post on an Expat site, its good info for those of you with Chinese licence’s going abroad.

China driver licence holders info:

China is not a signatory to the IDP (International Drivers Permit) international law.
So, China has NO IDP to issue,and no IDP issuer.

For China drivers licence holders, you just need an official translation of the licence into English (or the official language of the country you will be driving in) from a notary.

Suggest get that done here in China, where the notaries read Chinese.
Put a copy in your licence wallet, and you are good to drive in other countries.

Some other rules apply in certain countries – eg in Europe you can drive for a maximum of 6 months during visits, then they require you to apply for a local licence.

The basic facts aren’t clear (and they should be).

Basically each country thats a signatory has an official IDP issuer, and the IDP *must* be procured from them, or its invalid.

If the country is not a signatory, then a translation in the language of the destination country is sufficient.

After making a blog for Jelly Mon, I finally decided it was high time that we had our own blog at Computer Solutions to let our clients know what we’re up to.

So… here it is.

First post and all that.

As you can see, we’re revamping the main CS website to be more inline with our Design Site color scheme.  Once thats completed, we’ll be going through the site to update content (never a fun job, but someone has to do it!).

Next after that is for us to put in a ticketing system, so we can free up the phone lines a little.

The plan is to have our clients sign up at the support page, and enter trouble tickets on the support page.  We can then allocate the appropriate staff to respond in a timely manner, and resolve whatever issues you may have.

If you look at the top of the page, you’ll also notice a couple of links to the main sites clients need to visit – the mail page, and the newsletter admin page (for our Newsletter clients).   This should help those of you that are always forgetting which page to visit!

Lastly,  any comments are appreciated – whether they are about design, or service or whatever.

Leave comments below.