osTicket with GMail
We installed osTicket for some project. Man! it was not simple as I was hoping for.
Well, the basic installation was no pain, simple and easy; however, we had two issues with e-mail settings for gmail imap/pop utilization so the osTicket can send/receive ticket communication with customers.
Yes, that is right. osTicket let you receive e-mails from the customers for the reply to the ticket updates or to create a new ticket.
Gmail’s configuration instructions says:
| imap.gmail.com Use SSL: Yes Port: 993 |
and
| smtp.gmail.com (use authentication) Use Authentication: Yes Use STARTTLS: Yes (some clients call this SSL) Port: 465 or 587 |
No matter what I do, I could not register the imap server nor smtp server. It ended up connection refused error.
I tested those with “telnet” from the command line on the server and they were immediately refused for the connection. My hunch was they are blocked by the firewall of the shared hosting server that the client uses. Then I contacted the hosting company via chat session:
(03:46:17 PM) Me: is it possible that you guys are blocking certain ports?(04:01:09 PM) Support guy: My apologies, no, we do not block ports when connecting to Googles imap servers in anywya.(04:01:12 PM) Support guy: *anyway(04:05:05 PM) Me: $ telnet googlemail-imap.l.google.com 993Trying 74.125.45.16…telnet: connect to address 74.125.45.16: Connection refusedtelnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused(04:05:31 PM) Me: So are you saying I am refused by google?(04:05:49 PM) Support guy: Yes, it seems they are refusing the connection.(04:06:39 PM) Me: well, can you provide me a proof?
(03:46:17 PM) Me: is it possible that you guys are blocking certain ports?
(04:01:09 PM) Support guy: My apologies, no, we do not block ports when connecting to Googles imap servers in anywya.
(04:01:12 PM) Support guy: *anyway
(04:05:05 PM) Me: $ telnet googlemail-imap.l.google.com 993
Trying 74.125.45.16…
telnet: connect to address 74.125.45.16: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
(04:05:31 PM) Me: So are you saying I am refused by google?
(04:05:49 PM) Support guy: Yes, it seems they are refusing the connection.
(04:06:39 PM) Me: well, can you provide me a proof?
(04:07:10 PM) Me: Since I do not have root access, I cannot perform certain operations
(04:07:36 PM) Me: the similar settings work from other hosts other than you.
(04:07:50 PM) Me: just FYI.
(04:08:29 PM) Support guy: One moment please.
(04:08:39 PM) Me: the ports in question are 465, 993 & 587
(04:09:29 PM) Support guy: I understand, one moment please.
(04:09:44 PM) Me: thx.
(04:09:59 PM) Support guy: Sure.
(04:17:50 PM) Support guy: One moment please.
(04:21:38 PM) Support guy: That should be working for port 995 now.
(04:22:34 PM) Me: confirmed. so was it blocked?
(04:23:20 PM) Support guy: It was, which it shouldn’t have been, I do apologize about htat.
(04:23:21 PM) Support guy: *that
(04:28:18 PM) Support guy: Is there anything else that I can assist you with today?
(04:28:38 PM) Me: is port 465 open also?
(04:29:31 PM) Support guy: One moment please.
(04:29:51 PM) Support guy: Yes it should be.
Yep, they were blocking certain ports. You have to trust your knowledge and gut feeling.
How to configure Thunderbird 3.x as a pop mail client for GMail
I was trying to setup a POP client with Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 for GMail and realized the Gmail account gets configured automatically as a IMAP client.
I eventually figured it out but I wanted to share the how-to configure the Thunderbird 3.0 for POP service with GMail. Then created the video and uploaded to Youtube. Enjoy in a full-screen.
Google Hot Trends Keywords to 20 entries
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May be too many people have been fetching the google hot trends RSS feed or they have some other dark (?) reasons. What are your thoughts?