Asterisk is too complex, I think it'd be more around 10-20 FOSS solutions that would be generally accepted, but the need for proprietary systems in this industry is huge(or good UI FOSS projects, which rarely if ever exist). The manager, who has no clue what the difference between a CPU and a monitor is, needs to be able to configure the phones. And it's gotta be from IE.
Yeah, one of the big problems with Asterisk is, even though it is a *nix program, it is not really a *nix program, but takes a *nix box and makes it into a very configurable PBX, not the other way around. It's great, but, uh, difficult.
1. To connect to the telephone co, you'd need a T1 or ISDN PRI(Voice T1, not Data). 2. Digium (digium.com) has hardware to connect it to regular phone lines, ditto for out.
To connect to regular phones you need FXO ports, and to connect to outgoing phones you need FXS ports. Digium has hardware, and a few others. DLink has a good VoIP router(with QoS and everything).
I'm slowly getting my stuff together to be a consultant for this stuff, but I've got a lot to learn myself. It's too big of a market, but coming together.
You want a new PBX? Use Asterisk. You just need Voicemail? Asterisk. Want an IVR? Asterisk. Need a call center? Asterisk. Want to do call queuing? Asterisk. Need a predictive dialer? Asterisk.
Holy crap, that just solved so many problems, but impossible to configure.
You but liceneses for machines, if you have two computers at home you still need two liceneses for both PCs, even though you're still one person. Ditto if you get an extra laptop or another PC.
With little mention of what products they have(What they have on their page is/was free before) it's hard to imagine what they are going to do and if it'll be any good.
With XUL and XPCOM, you can do a lot. I've seen Click-to-Dial IAX softphone built via XUL. Integrate it with Skype, or the gaim/aim APIs(does aim have any public API's) and you can just click on their name to pop it up. I think there is a way to do it already in IE with AIM. Integrated click-to-dial would be great, for skype and other softphones, and if they could re-route it thru the sip server and make the hard phone dial that'd be even better. Online prescence indicators could be cool(You want to email blah? Blah is online) but that is more for Tbird. There's so much you can do with XUL/XPCOM right now, and it makes it really easy since it is based off of Moz/FF(SSL built in, hard to beat that). Let's hope they're able to take it a few levels from web plug-in to something really useful.
The less secrets you have, the better you feel about people having your personal information. The more secrets you know about others, the better you feel about having their personal information. =)
Althought space colonization is a good thing IMO, we're currently bogged down in crap down here. It's time for humans to just get more intelligent about things, from war to drugs to hunger, instead of listening to one person, taking that opinion as their own, and sticking to it for all eternity. The last thing we need is another colony that works the same as Earth, it'd be a little self-defeating after awhile.
Dallas doesn't have a police department and a 911 line, when I dialed the 10-digit number to file a noise complaint I heard "911" and I quickly apologized and asked for the number of the police department. They don't have one, just 911, which is used for everything.
I was at the recent VON conference in San Jose and there are a lot of emerging businesses out there to provide nothing but 911 and E911 services, so this problem is on the right way to get fixed. I'd still prefer to be able to access 911 services via SIP/IAX instead of VoIP->PSTN->911. I prefer the more direct route.
Not completely about regulation, but about access. Why don't the 911 providers have a network set up to handle VoIP calls to begin with, without going thru the traditional PSTN lines(and their inherent problems). At my first apartment, if it rained, the phone line went out, while my cable stayed up, as did my cell phone. There's no reason that 911 providers shouldn't embrace VoIP and at least set up some servers to handle incoming calls.
"One problem is that the 911 service and the VOIP people have to work together more."
Damn right, there's no reason the 911 services should be tied to PSTN only at this point, each 911 Station should have a SIP or IAX connection, and voip providers should sign up with them(to prevent sip/iax spam via the internet!) If you're gonna say to the new technology, "Use hoops to get here" then you're making them more than pay their taxes already, and making it more difficult.
Not if it's a well-written, patched system with lots of security controls.
They must means required windows-hole-filling measures.
Yeah, Linux/BSD can get virii too, but if you're smart enough you won't get them to begin with. I don't run any anti-virus on my desktop for the past 6 years and no problems so far. But it'd be nice if windows had a heuristic checker/syscall catcher before executing a program:
"The program you've launched wants to erase all your files, shall I let it continue?" says Clippy. C'mon, windows isn't meant for the advanced user, let's make it default for the regular home user and be a PITA to more technically inclined people.
When I worked at a coffee shop and people put $1.19 on their credit card, I always asked to see their ID whether or not this was written on it or not. Cheap bastards. =)
But whenever I saw someone with SEE ID on their credit card, I gave them such hell. I'd say their Signature didn't match the signature on the back of the card("SEE ID" being their signature), and they would complain it wasn't really their signature. I then said that their credit card is not valid until signed, and we only accepted valid credit cards. I can be such a bastard. =)
Last time in Vegas at the cashier's desk they had a CC sheet I saw, if it said "SEE ID" on the back of the card it wasn't valid at all. I asked about it, some people had been getting cash out of their accts and then saying since they hadn't actually signed it, it wasn't valid, and they couldn't have taken cash out. Casinos lost money thru that. I felt validated for my years of being a bastard at the coffeeshop after that.
If that link doesn't work check out their knowledgebase. But no increasing the number of inbound calls currently. (I'm sure demand will prompt them to hurry it up though).
My iPod Mini is already full, and I spent about $30 bucks on iTunes. And with all this "great" music coming out of the industry, looks like I'll be spending about an additional $30 this year! All my money goes to Audible, now that's why.
Sorry, napster's rep precedes it, and music just isn't that "in demand" as they want to pretend it is that it's worth a permanent monthly fee.
I'm using http://connect.voicepulse.com/ VoicePlus Connect! For devs/etc. 4 incoming/4 outgoing simultaneous, 7.95/local DID, free incoming minutes, per minute charges, 2.59/min, money in your acct never expires. Great for testing, works for simultaneous ring, works great with asterisk, and sound quality is great(even better if you QoS it).
My favorite I've seen is a Mensa sticker on a beat-up Honda with no rear-bumper. Yeah, probably a teacher or something, which is a great and noble profession, but whatever happened to spending 5 or 10 years and getting a nest-egg to live comfortably(at least to repair the car and make it street legal! this one was really bad!).
Ah well, Mensa is the most intelligent Trivia people I've ever met, some are amazing and intelligence and pure genius, most are doped-up idiots. Sorry, even the country club will have intelligent people and idiots, Mensa is no different, no gold though.
"DUNDi can also be used across the entire Internet to form a common E.164 web of trust permitting service providers to make real phone numbers available on the Internet. This permits true toll bypass with no subscription charges, no publication of information. An acceptable use policy prevents VoIP "spam" calls."
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Asterisk is too complex, I think it'd be more around 10-20 FOSS solutions that would be generally accepted, but the need for proprietary systems in this industry is huge(or good UI FOSS projects, which rarely if ever exist). The manager, who has no clue what the difference between a CPU and a monitor is, needs to be able to configure the phones. And it's gotta be from IE.
Yeah, one of the big problems with Asterisk is, even though it is a *nix program, it is not really a *nix program, but takes a *nix box and makes it into a very configurable PBX, not the other way around. It's great, but, uh, difficult.
1. To connect to the telephone co, you'd need a T1 or ISDN PRI(Voice T1, not Data).
2. Digium (digium.com) has hardware to connect it to regular phone lines, ditto for out.
To connect to regular phones you need FXO ports, and to connect to outgoing phones you need FXS ports. Digium has hardware, and a few others. DLink has a good VoIP router(with QoS and everything).
I'm slowly getting my stuff together to be a consultant for this stuff, but I've got a lot to learn myself. It's too big of a market, but coming together.
You want a new PBX? Use Asterisk. You just need Voicemail? Asterisk. Want an IVR? Asterisk. Need a call center? Asterisk. Want to do call queuing? Asterisk. Need a predictive dialer? Asterisk.
Holy crap, that just solved so many problems, but impossible to configure.
You but liceneses for machines, if you have two computers at home you still need two liceneses for both PCs, even though you're still one person. Ditto if you get an extra laptop or another PC.
Hey, you can't break up Ma Bell, it's just too big of a company! It'll never happen. Impossible.
Oh, wait...
MPlayer rocks, nothing better than waiting for X to compile/install than watching a movie on AA output. =)
With little mention of what products they have(What they have on their page is/was free before) it's hard to imagine what they are going to do and if it'll be any good.
With XUL and XPCOM, you can do a lot. I've seen Click-to-Dial IAX softphone built via XUL. Integrate it with Skype, or the gaim/aim APIs(does aim have any public API's) and you can just click on their name to pop it up. I think there is a way to do it already in IE with AIM. Integrated click-to-dial would be great, for skype and other softphones, and if they could re-route it thru the sip server and make the hard phone dial that'd be even better. Online prescence indicators could be cool(You want to email blah? Blah is online) but that is more for Tbird. There's so much you can do with XUL/XPCOM right now, and it makes it really easy since it is based off of Moz/FF(SSL built in, hard to beat that). Let's hope they're able to take it a few levels from web plug-in to something really useful.
The less secrets you have, the better you feel about people having your personal information. The more secrets you know about others, the better you feel about having their personal information. =)
"the reason that should have been number one"
It is.
Althought space colonization is a good thing IMO, we're currently bogged down in crap down here. It's time for humans to just get more intelligent about things, from war to drugs to hunger, instead of listening to one person, taking that opinion as their own, and sticking to it for all eternity. The last thing we need is another colony that works the same as Earth, it'd be a little self-defeating after awhile.
http://sipphone.com/phonegaim/ has been around for awhile. =)
Dallas doesn't have a police department and a 911 line, when I dialed the 10-digit number to file a noise complaint I heard "911" and I quickly apologized and asked for the number of the police department. They don't have one, just 911, which is used for everything.
I was at the recent VON conference in San Jose and there are a lot of emerging businesses out there to provide nothing but 911 and E911 services, so this problem is on the right way to get fixed. I'd still prefer to be able to access 911 services via SIP/IAX instead of VoIP->PSTN->911. I prefer the more direct route.
Not completely about regulation, but about access. Why don't the 911 providers have a network set up to handle VoIP calls to begin with, without going thru the traditional PSTN lines(and their inherent problems). At my first apartment, if it rained, the phone line went out, while my cable stayed up, as did my cell phone. There's no reason that 911 providers shouldn't embrace VoIP and at least set up some servers to handle incoming calls.
"One problem is that the 911 service and the VOIP people have to work together more."
Damn right, there's no reason the 911 services should be tied to PSTN only at this point, each 911 Station should have a SIP or IAX connection, and voip providers should sign up with them(to prevent sip/iax spam via the internet!) If you're gonna say to the new technology, "Use hoops to get here" then you're making them more than pay their taxes already, and making it more difficult.
"awareness of the required security measures."
Not if it's a well-written, patched system with lots of security controls.
They must means required windows-hole-filling measures.
Yeah, Linux/BSD can get virii too, but if you're smart enough you won't get them to begin with. I don't run any anti-virus on my desktop for the past 6 years and no problems so far. But it'd be nice if windows had a heuristic checker/syscall catcher before executing a program:
"The program you've launched wants to erase all your files, shall I let it continue?" says Clippy. C'mon, windows isn't meant for the advanced user, let's make it default for the regular home user and be a PITA to more technically inclined people.
Woohoo, new P4's. Man, I could really use one about now. Kinda chilly today.
Well, not a total switch, I think only a few slashdot readers are capable of switching.
Did you mean, "Add to your collection?"
When I worked at a coffee shop and people put $1.19 on their credit card, I always asked to see their ID whether or not this was written on it or not. Cheap bastards. =)
But whenever I saw someone with SEE ID on their credit card, I gave them such hell. I'd say their Signature didn't match the signature on the back of the card("SEE ID" being their signature), and they would complain it wasn't really their signature. I then said that their credit card is not valid until signed, and we only accepted valid credit cards. I can be such a bastard. =)
Last time in Vegas at the cashier's desk they had a CC sheet I saw, if it said "SEE ID" on the back of the card it wasn't valid at all. I asked about it, some people had been getting cash out of their accts and then saying since they hadn't actually signed it, it wasn't valid, and they couldn't have taken cash out. Casinos lost money thru that. I felt validated for my years of being a bastard at the coffeeshop after that.
Cut the damn ethernet cable and load up Encarta and a localized copy of wikipedia. =)
They'll finish their homework just to get a new ethernet cable asap.
Sweet. =) Thanks for the reference.
I like the quality of Voicepulse, I looked at TelIax but completely missed this part:
Unlimited Channels/Calls
Heck yeah. =) I like the free incoming from Voicepulse.
Voipjet just didn't interest me, the free test is good but I can't figure out the rest of the site at all.
Nufone isn't accepting new customers at this time. =/
Thx for the links though, I'm always on the lookout for new stuff. =)
http://voicepulse.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/voicepulse. cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=77&p_created=1 097635679&p_sid=jljcAWAh&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX 3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0xMjkmcF9 wYWdlPTE*&p_li=
If that link doesn't work check out their knowledgebase. But no increasing the number of inbound calls currently. (I'm sure demand will prompt them to hurry it up though).
My iPod Mini is already full, and I spent about $30 bucks on iTunes. And with all this "great" music coming out of the industry, looks like I'll be spending about an additional $30 this year! All my money goes to Audible, now that's why.
Sorry, napster's rep precedes it, and music just isn't that "in demand" as they want to pretend it is that it's worth a permanent monthly fee.
I'm using http://connect.voicepulse.com/ VoicePlus Connect! For devs/etc. 4 incoming/4 outgoing simultaneous, 7.95/local DID, free incoming minutes, per minute charges, 2.59/min, money in your acct never expires. Great for testing, works for simultaneous ring, works great with asterisk, and sound quality is great(even better if you QoS it).
But trivia questions do not equal intelligence.
My favorite I've seen is a Mensa sticker on a beat-up Honda with no rear-bumper. Yeah, probably a teacher or something, which is a great and noble profession, but whatever happened to spending 5 or 10 years and getting a nest-egg to live comfortably(at least to repair the car and make it street legal! this one was really bad!).
Ah well, Mensa is the most intelligent Trivia people I've ever met, some are amazing and intelligence and pure genius, most are doped-up idiots. Sorry, even the country club will have intelligent people and idiots, Mensa is no different, no gold though.
I've got the Nokia Communicator 9500 and it's Opera with a different skin(Nokia's branded it for themselves, but the same stuff is there).
No ads, works great too. 9500 Rocks because it's Wifi enabled too. Kinda big, but that's why it has the nickname "The Brick."
http://www.dundi.info/
From their site:
"DUNDi can also be used across the entire Internet to form a common E.164 web of trust permitting service providers to make real phone numbers available on the Internet. This permits true toll bypass with no subscription charges, no publication of information. An acceptable use policy prevents VoIP "spam" calls."
Actually, they have some great rates such as $15 or $20 a month for VoIP, but my cel is $130/mo.
Damn, I got unlimited GPRS, we need a VoIP client for Symbian. Then my life'd be free. =)