the news

So I’ve been an Asterisk fan for a long time, but mostly because of the functionality it spearhead providing. As a first-of-its-kind to a community of telephony enthusiasts in flexibility, features and simplicity, it really took the cake for being a wonderful open-source product.

However, I’ve felt for some time that the Asterisk endeavor has sort of stalled. While support for the product is mounting, people’s attempts to capitalize on it (www.trixbox.com, www.digium.com, etc.) may have actually stalled it’s growth in terms of features and flexibility.

Then I found FreeSwitch.

FreeSwitch’s goal was to take the things Asterisk couldn’t or wouldn’t do and expand on them. I truly believe this is the next Asterisk 2.0. From stability to a better core threading model, this is a great start to a new phenomenon.

One of my core concerns with FreeSwitch is that it is so flexible that I think some people get scared away from it because, out of the box, it actually doesn’t do very much. You’re left to program a bunch of dialplan and SIP provider information on your own. No GUI, little documentation, etc.

I can’t blame the developers for this – they clearly packed quite a punch in the feature list, and development is quite active – but I believe it’s stalling adoption.

So while I know PHP isn’t anyone’s favorite language these days, I decided to throw something new into the mix.

Welcome to the FreeSwitch GUI project. Today I began building a UI for FreeSwitch that allows it to work like a full-featured PBX. Been done before, I know, but it’s really just a start. I’m hoping to get feature requests to expand it to work as more then just a PBX. Maybe an advanced Call Center, or maybe an advanced IVR system? Who knows – but I’m open to requests.

I’ll be starting with the basics – look & feel, basic programming, and generating dialplans automatically. After that, we’ll try to make it flexible when configuring SIP providers. Then we’ll start adding more heavy duty features.

If you’re a PHP coder and interested in joining in this endeavor, feel free to hit me up.

Screenshots coming soon…

Posted in: Daily Dose, FreeSWITCH, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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So it looks like Sprint and BART think using your phone as your wallet could be a pretty cool idea. So much so that they’re paying people to try out their new technology.

I’m game.

Check out http://labs.sprint.com/intro/mobiletransit/

The trial benefits, if you qualify, include:
1. You will be paid for participation.

• $75 – after you pick up your new phone
• $75 – when completing the mid trial survey, post trial survey, and returning the phone
• $15 – for tapping on 5 of the 10 service discovery posters (more information will be provided when you pick up your new phone)
• Free Power Vision (data service) during the trial
• $20 – prepaid Jack-In-the Box card in Mobile Wallet

2. You will have the convenience of your leather wallet in your Sprint mobile phone in a secure fashion. You won’t have to fumble for cash, a ticket or card when riding BART or paying at Jack in the Box. Simply hold your phone up to the reader and you’re done!
3. You will pass through the lines at a faster pace.
4. You will use cutting edge technology for everyday purchases.

Note the item stating that if you tap 5 of the 10 service discovery posters you will win money. Interesting concept, huh? How’s that for getting people to check out your marketing materials and report back on them?

I’m fascinated with this idea. Your phone as your wallet. I also wonder if it’s hackable. The phones are most likely programmable. Mystery awaits!

And what about my friends who lose their phone constantly? Now they lose their wallet, too? Scary…

Posted in: Daily Dose, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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RingCentral,  a company I wrote about previously, has finally released their VoIP product. This thing still ranks as uber-cool in my book. I wish they’d support DIDs and SIP trunk handoffs, but outside of that, this is really a wonderful solution for home and small businesses that want a VoIP line with a bunch of features without paying much for them.

 If you’re a VoIP junky, I suggest you check this out. Most notable is their softphone which also supports faxing, and the fact that you can have multiple lines going at once on a single account.

Posted in: Daily Dose, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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Just when you thought the Internet couldn’t possibly find an interactive way to waste even more people’s time, there’s this…

http://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/index.htm

Have fun kids.

Posted in: Daily Dose, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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So it looks like downtown San Francisco had a bit of a negative jolt this morning – losing juice to all the major important stuff downtown. Interesting to learn that half of the critical buildings downtown are all wired on the same circuit.

Well, shit happens.

But wait! It gets better. 365 Main, the indestructible, went down, too. Failover to generators was not flawless and Craigslist, Yelp and other sites crashed. Still down now, 3 hours later. Aren’t we in the age of failover redundancy in Silicon Valley?

I’d personally buy some stock in APC tomorrow, when every CEO in the Valley yells at (or praises) their IT folks, but that’s just me.

Anyone get to go home early?

SF Gate Article

Mind you all, I’m still happy we live in a country where 2 hours without power is considered a big deal. (It’s really not)

Posted in: Daily Dose, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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So if you haven’t checked out Alltunes.com / AllOfMp3.com, I think you should. Not because it’s a controversial site that involves possibly violating copyright laws, but because it’s a fascinating attempt at distributing music on the Internet for very low prices – that’s been HIGHLY successful. As usual, rather then embrace this model, music companies are fighting this firm (with millions of legal $s) in an effort to protect “their rights.” Fair enough. But aren’t these the same companies that are continuously failing to catch the public’s attention with their copyright-protection riddled downloading schemes? These guys are busy making millions with a wonderful system! BUY IT AND SET WHATEVER PRICES YOU WANT!

Now, because of all the controversy, you might have trouble getting started. So here’s what you can do.

1) Create an account on www.Alltunes.com and download the Alltunes player/store (it’s similar to iTunes).

2) Create an account on XRost – the payment system. This link will take you there. Create an account, and buy a credit for $20 or so.

3) Deposit the credit you bought in step 2 into AllTunes via this link.

4) Download $20 worth of music! At $0.14 a song or so, you can get about 140 songs or 11 albums ($1.80/album!)

If you want to read up on this stuff, check out these recent articles… A bit of background before you read:

1) The site uses a “loophole” of sorts to claim that all the music they distribute is covered under a russian distribution license that’s really intended for other uses.

2) The music industries have been trying to sue the company for years but Russia won’t have it. The RIAA has even used lobbiests to try and pressure congress to force Russia to comply!

3) Visa pressured a credit card processing company to ban payment processing by AllTunes. A Russian court overturned this ruling recently.

Try AllTunes here

Posted in: Daily Dose, Music, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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So I’ve officially switched. I bought the Mac Powerbook to try and familiarize myself with Macs so we could officially support them, since many of our customers at work are demanding Mac support. I wanted to “get it.” I really thought, as a power user, that I would hate the thing.

Alas, I’m done with PC. This thing is so freakin fast, reliable and flexible. I’m very, very impressed. Microsoft is in big trouble if you ask me – add a few more things to Mac OS and there’s not much reason to buy Windows anymore. Microsoft Outlook comes to mind, as does .NET 2.0 support and a few programming tools like Zend or Visual Basic. But with many things moving to the Web anyway, Outlook is the only remaining hurdle long-term, in my eyes.

Here’s what I was surprised to find works within Mac OS X itself:
- Active Directory domain support! Just go into Utilities and click the Directory Services program, then check the Active Directory button. Assuming you’re an admin or know the domain admin password, you can even join the computer to the network (use the “Bind” button) from within Mac OS X!
- Printers on the AD work fine after it’s joined. Awesome.
- 802.1X wireless authentication. Works great – just import the cert!
- Remote Desktop Connection to Windows PCs (though, really, could we add a few options like resizing windows here?)
- Samba/Windows file shares and mapped drives (some manual mapping was required)

I’m sure there’s more. So let’s be clear, though – Safari works fine for surfing the web, MS Office for Mac works fine for Word/Powerpoint/etc., TextMate works fine as a text editor, Adium is great for IM, etc.. So the only two things I’m using Windows for at this point are ConnectWise (work) and Outlook (for work primarily).

Very impressed, still. I’ll be posting my install instructions plus my top 10 favorite programs thus far in a post this weekend.

Posted in: Daily Dose, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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Well, it only took a week and a half. Heh. But they finally did it.

My Comcast Voice line is now setup to work with incoming calls. Tested Caller ID w/ call waiting, too – seems to work fine. Interestingly, it seems that the Comcast Arris VoIP/Cable modem they gave me does a lot of stuff on the local side! This includes:
- Generate dialtone
- Generate ringing
- Generate call waiting tones
- Generate Caller ID data for phones

Some interesting info about the modem, from it’s diagnostics page (http://192.168.100.1):

CM Hardware Information

System: ARRIS DOCSIS 1.1 / PacketCable 1.0 Touchstone Telephony Modem HW_REV: 02
VENDOR: Arris Interactive, L.L.C.
BOOTR: 5.01
SW_REV: 5.0.50G
MODEL: TM502G
Product Type: 00000006 010a3aa2
Product Release: 00000002
Flash Part: AM29LV320MB
Functional Revision: 18
Download Revision: 2
Firmware Revision: 5.0.50G
Serial Number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Battery Charger FW Rev: 02.10

Based on the above, it looks like the chipset in this device is based on AMD’s Am29LV 3.0 volt flash memory series. While they don’t list the exact model shown above, I suspect this modem contains a modified version of the Am29LV320D. Seems like it would be an easy thing to pop this chip out and reprogram it with something like BDI2000. Oh well, not for me, for now!

Welp, good to go finally. Now I’ll have to screw with it soon to see what things can be done to it Since I have no intention of actually using it, mind you. It was free afterall.

Posted in: Daily Dose, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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Yup. I converted. Laugh. Cry. Yell. But I did it. And man is it cool.

So let’s get specific. It’s actually Parallels that interested me the most. Running Windows on top of Mac, seamlessly. Seemed impossible. But intriguing. I didn’t believe it. Further reading revealed Apple working on it’s own version of dual-boot – Bootcamp 1.3 . Wow. Plus, Mac sales are almost as high as Lenovo or HP (10% of all laptops were Mac in Q1 2007!)

So I took a look. And I bit! I sit here typing to you from my new MacBook Pro.

Here’s the funny part. I’m currently running Windows. Yup, Mac OS X isn’t even turned on. Though I can go turn it on, and stay in Windows, but have Mac OS X running also. It’s freakin awesome.

Enough gabbing… The next post will detail exactly what I did, and how I did it. It seems there’s not too many good guides on Apple Bootcamp 1.3 mixed with Parallels Desktop 3.0 . So I hope to help with that.

And hope to get Linux on here tonight, too.

Posted in: Daily Dose, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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Ya know that post about my Comcast voice? Well, it’s been 4 days and still broken!

Just thought you’d not care

Posted in: Daily Dose, Tech Stuff by Darren /
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