Asterisk Boot Camp Comes to Big Nerd Ranch

This is a news release by PRWEB press release service.
Asterisk Bootcamp, taught by instructor Jared Smith and developed by Sokol & Associates, highlights one of the most talked about emerging technologies in the telephony and programming industries. Asterisk is the perfect solution for a spectrum of telephony needs from voice over IP (VoIP), teleconferencing and switchboard functionality.
Big Nerd Ranch, Inc. announced today the newest addition to its line-up of classes, Asterisk Bootcamp, November 6-10, 2006. Asterisk Bootcamp, taught by instructor Jared Smith and developed by Sokol & Associates, highlights one of the most talked about emerging technologies in the telephony and programming industries. Asterisk is the perfect solution for a spectrum of telephony needs from voice over IP (VoIP), teleconferencing and switchboard functionality. As the global marketplace demands greater flexibility for meetings, conferencing, and sophisticated voice systems, Asterisk, the open source contender, provides a flexible, economical and scaleable design environment ideal for cutting-edge business, military and governmental powerhouses. This bootcamp is ideal for developers, Linux/Unix consultants, interconnect vendors and ITSP system administrators looking for an enhanced and more elegant PBX solution that rises above its more pedestrian competitors.

Skype-Compatible IP Phones and Skype for MAC beta!

Global IP Sound announced on Monday that it extended its partnership with Skype to enable hardware manufacturers to offer Skype compatible IP phones.
This comes in the aftermath of Skype beta announcement of Skype for mac.Skype now has Skype for Mac 1.5 BETA and also a video preview.
On the hardware front, "Skype has clearly revolutionized global personal communications with its offering," said GIPS' president and CEO Gary Hermansen in a statement. "This latest step in our relationship helps to solidify this growing market by expanding the options for Skype-enabled hardware devices and the ability for consumers to have a consistent, high-quality user experience regardless of platform."
Read more at links given.

Disruptive technologies disrupted? May be! No way!!

Do you still remember that printed telephone book and the yellow pages? I bet you sure do. It is holding that broken ..... Whatever up. Yes, for years online technologies have disrupted the importance and the revenue of yellow book and it services.
But Yellow pages plan to disrupt the disruptive services with YELLOW PAGE e NUMBER.COM (YPe.Nu).
"Now yellow page users can simply input a participating business phone number into their Internet browser and the YELLOW PAGE e NUMBER Zap-Blast system push's the phone number to the business web or e-mail site." to quote from their news letter.
Well it is for you to decide if you are going to dust out that phone book and dial or type the number of a company that you want to connect to. As for me I might well go to Google or Yahoo and do a search for what I am looking for and reach the company as well as it's competitors. I think it is easier for me to remember the website or do a search based on the company name or something closer to it than remembering 1-888-677-5268.YPe.Nu. So get over it, yellow book is dead as it used to be. It might live a little longer if the thick book is transformed in to a some sort of directory or a search site. But that is already there at google, yahoo and good old dmoz.org, the grand farther of all directories.

Trunk trixboxes (two right now!)

Recipe;
Two trixboxes, asterisk,
One FreePBX
Your hands to type
Keystone IT' blog article.
I have been trying to trunk two trixboxes for a while. I had some success and mostly failures. I needed to connect two remotely located offices together and be able to dial an extension and reach the extension from either office. When I was searching for the information, blog search, voip and telephony sites, I came across "Trunking Two Trixbox Servers" article on Keystone IT blog.
It was plain sailing from there and now I have two trxboxes acting as one. I will leave the details to keystone it article. Read it here.

Judge Rules Against NSA Wiretapping

"This is a challenge to the legality of a secret program undisputedly inaugurated by the NSA at least by 2002 and continuing today, which intercepts without benefit of warrant or other judicial approval, prior or subsequent, the international telephone and Internet communications of numerous persons and organizations within this country," she wrote. "The [wiretapping] has been acknowledged by this Administration to have been authorized by the President's secret order during 2002 and reauthorized at least 30 times since...Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution."

The case, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs because of the surveillance, brought to task the Bush administration's policy of what is allowed and what is not regarding the war on terror. The judge said the plaintiffs "sufficiently alleged that they suffered an actual, concrete injury traceable to Defendants and redressable by this court." In a statement attributed to Ann Beeson, associate legal director and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, the ACLU holds, "By holding that even the president is not above the law, the court has done its duty."

As part of its argument, the NSA said it could not defend this case without revealing state secrets. However, in her ruling, the judge wrote, "It is undisputed that Defendants have

publicly admitted to the following: (1) the [wiretapping program] exists; (2) it operates without warrants; (3) it targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the United States, and the government has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda. As the Government has on many occasions confirmed the veracity of these allegations, the state secrets privilege does not apply to this information."

She also pointed out that the Bush administration "has repeatedly told the general public that there is a valid basis in law for the [wiretap program]. Further, Defendants have contended that the President has the authority...to authorize the continued use of the [wiretap program]. Defendants have supported these arguments without revealing or relying on any classified information."

The ACLU's Beeson predicts the government will appeal the ruling and that the Bush administration will ask that the wiretapping be allowed to continue during the appeals process. She adds her group has made no decision as to whether it would oppose such a request.

Call free from Mountain view CA, Google home

Less than a year after the search engine giant said that it would unwire its hometown of Mountain View, California, GoogleFi is now open for packets.

The Mountain View network that cost nearly a million dollars to build went live at 9pm PST today. In order to use the network, the users will need a Google login, and those who don’t have Google ID, will be given a chance to sign up for the service, company officials said in an interview.
Click on the header or here to get the whole picture.

$3000 Voicemail Bill! Watch out if you are roaming

I just saw this on Jo-itos site and my jaw dropped because I am always roaming (well most of the time!). But I am on a different network.
The story is of a traveler from Europe who happened to travel by ship and made a call from LA. All his voicemail was counted as roaming and ended up with a bill for $3000. So if you are roaming and on T-Mobile watch out. Read more at Jo's site.

VOIP usage Jumps even higher!

Last April we reported that usage of IP Telephony is on the rise. The article VOIP IP Telephony: US consumer VOIP usage increases with Vonage leading the way gave the breakup of major companies.
Company......................................Market Share....Households
Vonage...........................................47.5%.......1,861000
Skype............................................11.8%.........463000
AT&T Call Vantage................................ 5.6%.........218000
Verizon Voice Wing................................5.0%.........196000
Google............................................2.5%..........97000
8x8 (Packet8).....................................1.7%..........67000
Other VoIP Providers (excluding cable companies) 25.9%.......1,013000
But now there is another research report is out!
The Subscriber rate has jumped 21% to 6.9 million in the second quarter, according to TeleGeography report issued on Wednesday.
Now Cable-TV companies are joining the foray. Even challenging the likes of Vonage and Skype.
Her is a brief summary;
Cable TV companies now account for 60 percent of VoIP subscribers, up from 52 percent in mid-2005. Vonage and other pure-play VoIP providers serve the remaining 40 percent, or about 2.8 million subscribers.
"Even more significantly, (cable companies) accounted for 68 percent of new subscribers added in the second quarter, a sign that (their) aggregate consumer VoIP market share will continue to grow in coming months," the report said.
Vonage still leads the way with 1.8 million subscriber lines. Time Warner Inc.'s cable TV business was second again at nearly 1.6 million. The companies added roughly the same number of accounts, with 243,000 for Vonage and 234,000 for Time Warner.
Cablevision Systems Corp is the third-largest provider, growing by 122,000 subscribers to 987,500, No. 4 Comcast Corp. posted a 73 percent jump in users during the second quarter, finishing with 721,000.
VoIP revenues for the second quarter were up 173 percent at $607 million across the United States, compared with a year-ago level of $221 million.

Asterisk Zero Configuration Service!

For all those that have been using fighting reinstalling or may be giving up of setting up an ASTERISK server or a PABX, you have a new tool! AZCS! Asterisk Zero Configuration Service. Not exactly the server configuration but the hand sets attached to it.
The Asterisk Zero Configuration Services (AZCS) provides a services for automating the configuration of handsets in a LAN environment even when handsets from different vendors are used.
The Asterisk Zero Configuration services also provides a means of modifying individual phones which may need access to a larger range of numbers (e.g. international dialing). The access rights of a given phone can be upgraded by dialing a specialized administration extension through which (given the right PIN) the phones access rights can be permanently upgraded. The new access rights will apply even if the phone is rebooted or moved to another location.
Alas it is not free and if you are still interested, you can get it here.
The Asterisk Zero Configuration Service is available for $3000 + GST and comes with support for a single type of manufacturers handset. Support for additional manufacturers and models can be purchased separately.

Let a chocolate sing songs for you! Verizon's LG VX8500

Geemodo: While Zune battles iPOD, VeriZon fights with LG VX8500 (LG-KG800)