JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX Wiki
This is a research week for us, but we wanted to take a minute or two and tell you what we’re working on. It’s called PBX-in-a-Flash™, and it’s a self-contained PBX on a flash drive that includes the best of TrixBox, and Asterisk®, and freePBX, and Apache, and MySQL, and phpMyAdmin, and, of course, all the Nerd Vittles goodies. All you’ll do is plug it into your favorite Windows machine and watch it whir away installing everything with just one mouse click. We hope to have a version for Linux as well down the road a bit. When the install finishes, you can remove the flash drive and keep it as a backup, or you can erase the flash drive and use it to store your favorite music or photos. Or, better yet, pass it along to a friend. Then crank up the software in a window on your desktop machine, plug in a phone or load your softphone, and you’re in the IP telephony business with your very own PBX, weather station, news center, and kitchen sink.
Down the road, we’ll find someone to actually bundle PBX-in-a-Flash™ with their flash drives. But, for now, we’re going to play Santa Claus early. To celebrate our 150th column, we’re giving away one of these each week for the next six weeks to the person who leaves the best comment on Nerd Vittles. It can be a tip, a correction, or just a comment about something on Nerd Vittles that really helped you get started with Asterisk. Be sure to post your comment with a correct email adddress. It won’t be published on the site but will be used to contact you if you are our Commenter Extraordinaire. All winners should expect to receive your PBX-in-a-Flash™ units before Christmas … this year. It’s our way of thanking all of you for making Nerd Vittles one of the best Asterisk resources on the web.
P.S. A new, stable TrixBox 1.2.2 is now available including a new VMware build. Make sure you apply the following patch after installation. Thanks, Andrew!
Nerd Vittles Fan Club Map. Thanks for visiting! We hope you’ll take a second and add yourself to our Frappr World Map compliments of Google. In making your entry, you can choose an icon: guy, gal, nerd, or geek. For those that don’t know the difference in the last two, here’s the best definition we’ve found: "a nerd is very similar to a geek, but with more RAM and a faster modem." We’re always looking for the best BBQ joints on the planet. So, if you know of one, add it to the map while you’re visiting as well.
Nerd Vittles Demo Hot Line. You now can take a number of Nerd Vittles projects for a test drive… by phone! The current demos include NewsClips for Asterisk (latest news headlines in dozens of categories), MailCall for Asterisk with password 1111 (retrieve your email by phone), and Nerd Vittles Weather Forecasts by U.S. Airport Code. Just call our number (shown in the left margin) and take any or all of them for a spin. The sound quality may not be perfect due to performance limitations of our ancient Intel 386 demo machine. But the price is right.
Hosting Provider Special. Just an FYI that the Nerd Vittles hosting provider, BlueHost, has raised the bar again on hosting services. For $6.95 a month, you can host up to 6 domains with 30GB of disk storage and 750GB of monthly bandwidth. Free domain registration is included for as long as you have an account. That almost doubles last month’s deal, and it really doesn’t get any better than that. Their hosting services are flawless! We oughta know. We’ve tried the best of them. If you haven’t tried a web hosting provider, there’s never been a better time. Just use our link. You get a terrific hosting service, and we get a little lunch money.
Want More Projects? For a complete catalog of all our previous Asterisk projects, click here. For the most recent articles, click here and just scroll down the page.
Headline News for the Busy Executive and the Lazy Loafer. Get your Headline News the easy way: Planet Asterisk, Planet Gadget, Planet Mac, and Planet Daily. Quick read, no fluff.
Got a PDA or Web-Enabled Smartphone? Check out our new PDAweather.org site and get the latest weather updates and forecasts from the National Weather Service perfectly formatted for quick download and display on your favorite web-enabled PDA, cellphone, or Internet Tablet. And, of course, it’s all FREE!
Thank you for the many great articles. I have learned a lot from your site. I find this the best site for Asterisk enthusiasts.
Thanks you.
I have been trying to get A@H and Trixbox working for ages, and I can honestly say that I would still be at square 1 if it wasn’t for this site! THANK YOU!
On a more serious note, there are a couple of things that people might like to know:
1) Trixbox 1.2.3 was released last night! 😛
2) For those using Cisco 79xx phones there is a really great piece of software you can use to add phonebook and messaging functionality to the phones – it uses XML. The link is: http://web.csma.biz/apps/xml_xmldir.php
However, I have yet to get it working properly! If Ward or anyone has got 5 mins to write up a walkthrough for installation I’m sure the wider community would appreciate it (maybe even worth rolling into the next release of Trixbox!?)!
Once again, thanks for the hard work that you put in Ward – it has certainly helped a noob like me get to grips with Trixbox and Linux in general!