We are an information technology and business services company located in Calgary, Alberta. Our mission is to provide creative solutions that fit our customer's budgets and add to their bottom line. Our people take pride in our creativity, tenacity, and commitment in solving our client's problems in a way that adds to their bottom line. We are Etopian, nice to meet you!

 
 
 

How to create a starburst in Inkscape

Wed, 06/17/2009 - 8:14am — Sami Khan
Sami Khan's picture

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

For this site I wanted to create a nice little badge to advertise the fact that we offer free quotes. I thought of all the software that I could use including Corel, but I was feeling adventurous and decided to try to do it in Inkscape, and I must say I am pretty impressed with how well Inkscape works from a graphic illustrator’s point of view. In many ways Inkscape seems ideal for web graphics considering it uses a version of SVG to store the file. Granted the SVG might not work 100% with standard SVG used in browsers, it is still impressive as its an open format.

Anyhow, I thought I would share the results of my work, these are in Inkscape SVG format. It was created with Inkscape .46 in Linux in case you are wondering.

How to get Novatel Merlin 950d to work with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty

Sun, 06/14/2009 - 5:53pm — Sami Khan
Sami Khan's picture

I have been struggling with this for some time since I installed the latest Ubuntu on a new Dell laptop. In the previous version of Ubuntu things simply worked, you would plug it in, it would show up as a CDROM and then you would umount that and the modem would show up. In the recent version that did not seem to be the case and I could not figure out how to get usb_storage to let this damn cdrom drive go, but finally after a long series of failed attempts I pieced together how to get this damn thing working.

Gnome Tray Services for Ubuntu and Debian

Gnome Tray Services for Ubuntu and Debian is a simple application written in Python using PyGTK for the Gnome Desktop. GTS simply allows you to start and stop init.d services on demand from your desktop system tray.

It was written in-house because our Linux development environment requires that we run daemons like Apache and MySQL, but only if we are developing. Therefore, it makes sense to be able to start and stop the services with the least amount of hassle. GTS does just that, it will prompt you for the root password using gksudo, and then start or stop the service.

Language: Python
Platform: Ubuntu / Debian (Linux)
License: GPL Version 3

Kiva: Viva Business Information Translation System

While working with C3, we helped develop an entire application for Kiva on top of Drupal that allows volunteers to translate information from any languages to English. Our work mainly involved the workflow system that carried incoming business information through a number of steps leading all the way out of Drupal. The workflow system allows Kiva volunteers to translate businesses in other languages to English.

Adeptech Systems

Adeptech hired us to develop a corporate website based on Drupal. Currently the website runs Drupal 6 which was upgrade from a Drupal 4.7 website, which we developed as well. Development included developing a new template-based theme for Drupal 6, a custom logo, copying existing content from a static site and creating a custom piece of code that properly creates sections. Taxonomy image was used alongside automatic path aliasing to make a compeling site that is well-designed for web crawlers.

URL: http://www.adeptech.com
Platform: Drupal

HTTPS Python XMLRPC Server w/ Authentication

Implementing an XML-RPC Server in Python is simple but implementing a modular class with HTTP authentication and SSL encryption is a bit more difficult. For our internal use we produced such a Python-based RPC server. We have tested it and have to say that it works pretty well. In keeping with our commitment to open source we have decided to release it for anyone who is interested in deploying their own HTTPS XMLRPC server using Python. It uses the twistd framework and can be run as a daemon under Linux.

Goal: Allow a flexible Python-based XML-RPC server with authentication and HTTPS to securely communicate with XMLM-RPC clients.
Language: Python
Challenges: No documentation
License: GPL Version 3

Moby Pages

Local businesses that care.

In mid-2000 local search was hot, so we thought that we might give it a try. We created the concept of Moby Pages and launched it in late 2007. Moby Pages is different from its competitors in that it is not simply a directory of businesses. Instead, it is a directory of businesses that showcases their contributions to community and society. In doing that we feel that we are changing the game.

URL: http://www.mobypages.com

Our New Year's Resolutions for Your Business

Tue, 12/30/2008 - 8:23pm — Sami Khan
Sami Khan's picture

Just in time for a new year I thought I should write a bit about new year’s resolutions in terms of businesses. We all know that businesses are people too, and just like people businesses pick up bad habits. If you look at New Year’s Resolution on wikipedia you will find the common ones. I am going to explain how each applies to your business.

Stepping Back Into High Gear

Tue, 12/30/2008 - 8:13pm — Sami Khan
Sami Khan's picture

Etopian has been taking a break, but we’re back and in high spirits. Due to some forseen circumstances we decided to temporary suspend our operations in late 2006 in terms of our offering. Since then we have been working on a few projects off and on, but with little strategic commitment to seeing this company grow. That all changed recently and in the new year with a few new faces and an old one as well, we’re back baby! So look forward to new tutorials, new content, new projects, and interesting analysis pieces written by people like Sami Khan and Stephen Cartwright.