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The Ultimate Asterisk Telephony Appliance

gPC miniWe’ve been quietly waiting for Everex to finally get its act together and deliver the Ultimate Asterisk® Telephony Appliance for SOHO users and organizations. Truth be told, it’s the reason we shelved our original VPN in a Flash desktop unit from last August. Thanks to NewEgg, it’s now available and it’s dirt cheap… if you hurry. Would you believe $339 for the gPC mini ET2400. And with this coupon link, you can knock off another $11 and some change. Just sign up for a free eBates account and follow the eBates link to NewEgg to save 2% on your total order plus another $5 for signing up. We, of course, get five dollars wealthier in the process as well.

In addition to a fantastic-looking, small-footprint mini knockoff of your favorite fruit-inspired hardware, here’s what $339 buys you if you act quickly:

  • 2.0GHz Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Mobile Processor T2450
  • 2MB L2 Cache
  • 160GB SATA Hard Drive
  • 2GB DDR2 667 SDRAM
  • Slot-In DVD-ROM/DVD-RAM/DVD±RW Drive (Double Layer support)
  • Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator GMA950
  • Realtek ALC268 High-Definition Audio
  • 10/100/1000 Ethernet Port
  • 802.11 b/g Wireless LAN
  • Bluetooth Wireless
  • DVI-I Port with DVI to VGA/D-sub Adapter
  • S-Video Port
  • IEEE 1394 Firewire Port
  • (4) USB 2.0 Ports
  • 4-in1 Media Card Reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro)
  • Headphone/Line-Out Port
  • Microphone/Line-In Port
  • Windows Vista Home Premium (for your nearest trash can)

gPC miniYes, you won’t be needing Windows for your new Ultimate Asterisk Telephony Appliance. Very shortly, Nerd Vittles will introduce its turnkey USB flash installer which brings you every Asterisk bell and whistle on the planet in under 15 minutes. We had hoped to introduce the new flash drives this week to celebrate the beginning of Nerd Vittles Fifth Year. But the pricing on 8GB flash drives that provide the compatibility we need to facilitate duplication just weren’t there so we’ll just wait a few weeks until they are. In the meantime, you can order up your new system and enjoy Windows at its very worst for a week or two while realizing a substantial $150 savings on your system. Enjoy!


Want a Bootable PBX in a Flash Drive? Our bootable USB flash installer for PBX in a Flash will provide all of the goodies in the VPN in a Flash system featured last month on Nerd Vittles. You can build a complete turnkey system using almost any current generation PC with a SATA drive and our flash installer in less than 15 minutes!

If you’d like to put your name in the hat for a chance to win a free one delivered to your door, just post a comment below with your best PBX in a Flash story.1

Be sure to include your real email address which will not be posted. The winner will be chosen by drawing an email address out of a hat (the old fashioned way!) from all of the comments posted over the next couple weeks. All of the individuals whose comments were used in today’s story will automatically be included in the drawing as well. Good luck to everyone and Happy New Year!!


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

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Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 


Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

  1. This offer does not extend to those in jurisdictions in which our offer or your participation may be regulated or prohibited by statute or regulation. []

13 Comments

  1. GREAT! Just what was missing… I have some SOHOs where I have been installing some Small Factor PCs for the PBX, of course those run for about $500 from Dell so this is a great deal, and it looks better too! Too bad there’s no way to cover all the ports to make it look more like an appliance and less like a PC.

    Hey Ward, I installed a PIAF in a Call Center with 25 stations… all of them are using xlite in ubuntu and a $15 USB headset… it’s been working like a charm for two months now. I did not know how it will perform in a place that has over 20 simultaneous calls for over 9 hours a day, but it’s working great!

    Thanks a lot for everything!

  2. Nice form-factor! Any thoughts on how many users/phones this might support? And outside of the smaller form factor, how does this compare to the Dell server option?

  3. I say the T100 is better at a similar cost or why not build your own with an Atom Dual Core? This is an option for plan C, I suppose. I think it is time to stick with one or two different options and make those reliable. I think most would vote for the T100 and an Atom option.

    [WM: We agree. For large offices, we certainly would recommend the Dell PowerEdge T100. For smaller offices and homes, this appliance provides the Atom option. For those that travel or need mobility, the Acer Aspire One provides a mobile Atom option.]

  4. It does look a little like a Mac mini, but that grey section in the middle is just confusing. It’s like there are two CD drives or something. Running PiaF on a cheap AppleTV, now there’s an idea. 🙂

    [WM: You’ve been reading our mind… or our articles, haven’t you?]

  5. I’m a little confused. Can you install the downloadable CD image PIAF onto this machine? Does it have the drivers for it?

    [WM: You bet. The new PBX in a Flash 1.4 ISO installs just fine. After CentOS is installed and the system reboots, type Q to drop down to the command prompt. Run the piaf-menu and select driver A. Once it’s installed, just reboot and you’re off to the races. In addition, our new Atomic Flash self-booting flash drive for PBX in a Flash featuring a Fedora 10 Remix will provide a 15-minute install of the system outlined on our VPN in a Flash knol for most Atom-based systems.]

  6. That’s great to know. I did not want to purchase the unit unless I could use it with your software. After reading you posts more carefully, I now see that you are going to sell a flash drive to make it easier to install onto this computer.

    I think it’s great that you have a way to monetize what you are doing, so I plan on buying your flash drive when it becomes available.

  7. Having played with this machine for several days now, it’s difficult to describe how "expensive" the machine feels. It really is IBM-quality from 20 years ago (for those that remember that far back). Measured against The Cool Factor, it’s every bit as nice as a Mac mini or Apple TV. In addition, the system has three air vents and runs absolutely cool all the time with no detectable noise even under heavy CPU usage. In short, you (or at least we) could not build an Atom-based mini of this quality and performance for anything close to this price. Once configured, you could certainly stick this little thing on a shelf with no monitor, keyboard or mouse and forget about it for months at a time. Amazing!

  8. Try buying one here in NZ……

    [WM:Give ’em a little time. You can’t find many in the U.S. at the moment either. NewEgg bought these right off the boat. No one else has them, and NewEgg sold out quickly.]

  9. Looks like this may be out of stock at NewEgg now. Any thoughts on how this compares to an Asus Eee Box?

    [WM: Night and day between this unit and the EEE PC. We have both and the gPC mini runs circles around it.]

  10. newegg’s site says the gPC mini is "deactivated", possibly meaning out of stock etc. Everex’s site is selling them for the sale price of $449. Hopefully the product and $339 price will come back soon?!

    [WM: The gPC mini was certainly a good value at $339. Given its popularity, I wouldn’t count on another $339 deal for a good long while. That next $100 is the retailer’s profit. As Confucius says: "You snooze. You lose." 🙂 ]

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