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The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING
JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX WikiHow Good Can a $298 Android Tablet Be?
Pretty damn good in the case of the new 8″ Vizio Tablet. While it’s not going to take any speed awards when compared with the new Galaxy Tab 10.1, it does have a 1GHz processor with 512MB of RAM which delivers respectable performance with incredible battery life that rivals any iPad. Storage capacity is limited to 2GB, but you can add a 32GB microSD and meet any computing demands you may have. Currently the device is WiFi only.
As you might expect, Vizio knows a thing or two about televisions, and there’s a silver lining with the Vizio Tablet. Not only is an IR blaster included in the hardware, but you also get a giant TV remote that controls any combination of TVs, cable and satellite boxes, DVD and BluRay devices, and about 95% of the other video and audio components you will find on the planet. And it works as well or better than any of the pricey, high-end touchscreen (with a little screen) TV remotes that would easily put you in the Poor House. Say goodnight, Logitech. There’s also a front-facing 640×480 camera which easily suffices for video conferencing. No current video conferencing apps work, by the way, but it’s only been on the street for a week. The best news of all, you can pick one up at Costco or WalMart if you want one today. Or order it from Amazon if you prefer tax-free.
We don’t dive too deeply into the technical weeds in our reviews. If you want the technical assessment, check out this SlashGear review. What we prefer to evaluate is real-world usage of these devices. The Vizio Tablet passes with flying colors. In addition to reading email and browsing the web, here’s the suite of applications which we think matter to most folks. We want to watch videos from YouTube and NetFlix. We want to stream music from Google Music and Spotify and read our Kindle books. We like to use Skype. Sorry, Apple, we also like Flash video support which works perfectly on the Vizio Tablet even though it’s currently running Gingerbread.1
Last, but not least, being a phone nerd, we obviously want to make and receive free phone calls using either an Asterisk® server with CSipSimple or Google Voice using a $50 Obihai device and the free ObiON client for Android. Both work great!
Of course, the usual Android favorites including Google+ with the exception of (the currently non-functioning) Huddle for video conferencing with up to 10 participants, Maps, Navigation, and Google Talk all work flawlessly. Gallery is perfectly synched with your Picasa photo collection which now can store unlimited photos at no cost through Google Plus. If you want to actually take professional photographs and make feature films, this isn’t the device for you. With the exception of Skype which is not yet available for this device (which was just released), everything else we’ve mentioned works great especially if you’re living on a budget. And, with the addition of Huddle in Google+, the absence of Skype support really doesn’t much matter any more. If you happen to need a Google+ invite, here’s a link compliments of Nerd Vittles. Finally, and pardon us for repeating, if you’re sick of wrestling with a half dozen remotes to watch television, this device is worth its weight in gold. You’ll be asking yourself why no one but Vizio was smart enough to think of it.
Vizio also had a better idea when it came to the Android user interface. As you can see in the photo above, there’s a top section where you can install your Favorite Apps. Immediately below that is your entire Applications collection. At the very bottom, there are five buttons which you can assign to your Must-Have Apps such as email, your web browser, the Google Market, Settings, and whatever else you happen to like.
Another nice touch that hasn’t been mentioned in many of the reviews is that Vizio has added a new keyboard option. If you remember the ergonomic keyboards that had the keys divided into two sections, Vizio has done much the same thing on the touchscreen which greatly improves typing for those that actually learned how. This keyboard, of course, can be toggled on and off depending upon your personal taste.
In conclusion, we think Vizio has hit a home run with this device. The price point, the feature set, the form factor, and the incredible battery life are just about perfect. We’ve listed a few of our favorite Android apps below to get you started. Enjoy!
Originally published: Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
whos.amung.us If you’re wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what’s happening. It’s a terrific resource both for us and for you.
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.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.
VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
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…
- Honeycomb has been promised for down the road. [↩]
Welcome to Frontier Days
One of my favorite vacations as a kid was spent enjoying Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming. If you’ve never been with your family, you need to add this to your Bucket List. It’s a week-long celebration that you’ll never forget. To commemorate this year’s event which is going on right now, we decided to celebrate by staging our own Frontier Days here at Nerd Vittles. It provides you an opportunity to join with us in kicking the tires of all the new stuff we’re working on this summer to write about in the fall. In the grand tradition of Cheyenne’s Frontier Days, expect a wild ride! If you’re a bit squeamish about knowing how sausage is made, today’s introduction to new projects may not be your cup of tea. For the pioneers, it’s Party Time! So let’s get started.
Introducing Asterisk 10. At the top of our list is the brand new Asterisk®, formerly known as Asterisk 1.10. You’ll want to read Kevin Fleming’s announcement of the name change, and then read Malcolm Davenport’s summarization of the new product. Here are a few excerpts:
A major focus of the Asterisk 10 development cycle was Asterisk’s support for media types. In versions of Asterisk 1.8 and prior, Asterisk supported a rather limited number of codecs due to some architectural limitations. Plumbing was ripped out, kitchens were remodeled, girders were swapped, and Asterisk 10 now has a media architecture that’s capable of handling both a nearly unlimited number of codecs as well as codecs with more complex parameters…
Asterisk 10 [also] provides basic video conferencing support. That’s right, if you and your friends have video-capable SIP devices, that all speak the same video codec and profile, you can create multi-party video conferences.
Asterisk 10 can also improve your faxing experience. Asterisk 1.4 is capable of T.38 pass-through, where one T.38 capable endpoint can send a fax directly to another T.38 capable endpoint – usually a couple of SIP peers. Asterisk 1.6.X and 1.8 are capable of T.38 termination, where Asterisk can read/write TIFF files from/to T.38 endpoints. Now, with Asterisk 10, transparency between non-T.38 and T.38 is possible.
Whenever there are major plumbing changes, there usually are some major surprises awaiting those of us that depend upon Asterisk to actually make calls. That’s where you come in. Tom King has quickly put together a new PBX in a Flash 1.7.5.6.3 ISO that includes PIAF-Red, aka the new Asterisk 10. We encourage you to try it on a non-production machine, and report any problems both to us (on the PIAF Forum) and to Digium® (in the Bug Tracker). Here’s a download link to get you started. Here’s the new Cepstral TTS installer.
Introducing Incredible PBX 2.0. Frontier Days wouldn’t be complete without a new version of Incredible PBX. In this beta release, we’ve reworked Google Voice support and added one of the most requested features, the ability to enter dial strings for trunks in outbound routes the old-fashioned way.
On the Google Voice front, we’ve replaced the hard-coded Google Voice code in Incredible PBX 1.8 with Marcus Brown’s new FreePBX® module. It not only makes Google Voice usage optional, but it also lets you add and remove multiple Google Voice trunks to your heart’s content. And the setup process takes less than a minute to enter your credentials.
Incredible PBX 2.0 also includes Andrew Nagy’s new Swiss Army Knife Module for FreePBX. This module adds some of the most requested features that currently are missing from FreePBX 2.8 and 2.9:
- Export a CSV file of your Dial Patterns from Outbound Dial Plans
- Use Textbox Dial Patterns for Outbound Routes
- Modified Blacklist Module allowing any value, not just numbers
- Coming Soon: reg-exp black/white list module
If you’d like to take Incredible PBX 2.0 for a spin, here’s a download link with instructions. Be aware that this version is NOT suitable for use on any system that is not also protected by a hardware-based firewall. For example, don’t use it on a hosted server such as RentPBX.com just yet. We use a different security model on hosted and cloud-based systems, and it is NOT included in this build. Finally, Incredible PBX 2.0 is not yet compatible with Asterisk 10 and PIAF-Red, but we’re working on it.
Introducing Google+. Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, you probably have heard that Google has a new little product of its own. In less than 3 weeks, Google+ has grown to over 20 million users, and it’s still by invitation only. You can read our writeup of it on Nerd Vittles. Suffice it to say, it is a game changer for those of us in the technology business. It’s an almost perfect tool for carrying on a problem-solving dialog, and we plan to make extensive use of it in coming months to support PBX in a Flash and Incredible PBX. Don’t be shy. We’ve got plenty of invites. All you have to do is drop us a note and include the word Google+ so we’ll know what you need. We’re turning requests around in less than a day. One final hint. Use your real name on Google Voice, or the Soup Nazi may remove your account. It’s become a bit of a brouhaha at the moment… as one might expect during Frontier Days.
Introducing OS X Lion. Apple has not been asleep at the wheel either. Their new operating system release is extraordinarily good but only available as an over-the-air update to an existing OS X 10.6.8 system. You can read our writeup of the gotchas for a quick and painless install. And, if you’re in the market for a new notebook, we can’t say enough good things about the new MacBook Air. It’s in a league of its own.
Introducing Google Chromebooks. Last but not least, we need to say a few words about the amazing new Chromebooks running Google’s Chrome OS. As with cellphones, Google is not making the hardware. So you have a choice of Samsung or Acer at the moment. The Samsung model starts at $429 for the WiFi only model. The comparable Acer machine is $80 cheaper. We opted for the Samsung WiFi machine which is well made, has an incredible battery life, and just works. For 95% of what we do, it’s a perfect device. There’s a short list of gotcha’s. First, you’ve got to have network connectivity since everything is cloud-based. Second, if your requirements include a lot of graphics manipulation and editing, this probably is not the machine for you quite yet. Finally, if movies (NetFlix) and music (Spotify) are must-have’s, you’d better wait a month or two until those products are available for the Chromebook. Google Music, which allows you to put your own music collection in the cloud, works fine today! There’s an add-on extension to Chrome for Google Voice. As of yesterday, it works flawlessly to make and receive calls. In summary, if your computing requirements primarily involve surfing the web, email, and SSH, then you’re going to be very happy with the Chromebook.
In our case, we’re trying to alternate our use between a Chromebook and the new MacBook Air. So far, we’ve been very satisfied with both. And the Chromebook is 1/4 the cost! Pioneers Forever! Enjoy!
Originally published: Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
whos.amung.us If you’re wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what’s happening. It’s a terrific resource both for us and for you.
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.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.
VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
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…
Sorry Apple: The Google Lion No Longer Sleeps
Just when it looked like the tech world would stabilize for a bit while we spent a few days at the beach, Google unleashed a tsunami that suddenly made Apple’s Lion and iOS announcements look trivial. And, if you’re a Facebook shareholder or if you weren’t quite sure Microsoft should have bought Skype, you probably should have sold those shares early last week. Today we’ll introduce you to Google+, and we’ll give you a free invite to join the party.
Strange as it seems, the only real discussion thus far has been by the social networking folks pitching G+ as the Facebook Killer. Maybe so. Maybe not. But, if your business or organization revolves around collaboration, Google just introduced the perfect tool for you. Whether it’s students working on a group project, parents or adults organizing a non-profit event, or architects designing the next great vacation paradise, Google+ has all the necessary components to make the project cohesive, participatory, and even fun. With its rich multimedia functions and threaded messaging that carried over from Google Wave, G+ offers the flexibility to demonstrate and talk about almost anything. There’s YouTube, of course. And web and image links. The photo integration and unlimited image storage with Picasa makes Facebook look downright primitive.
Video conferencing with 10 simultaneous people scattered around the globe or 10 students working on a joint project takes Skype to a whole new level. Google Plus calls it Hangouts. Sorry, Facebook, but one-on-one video chatting (even with Skype) is so yesterday.
G+ Circles are clearly the product differentiator. If you’re a Gmail user, you already know how Labels let you organize your email into multiple categories with the flexibility to attach more than one label to a single email message. It made email folders obsolete overnight. You no longer had to pigeonhole every message into one and only one folder. Circles let you do much the same thing with people you choose to follow on Google Plus. You can organize your friends, business associates, family, and projects into groups of people. And you can place the same person in multiple circles. Threads of messages then can be dedicated solely to a particular interest group or to multiple circles if that better meets your requirements. You can review message threads on a circle by circle basis. And you can lock down messages so that members of your circle cannot reforward a particular message to others. It provides a level of security that at least discourages inadvertent disclosure to outsiders. Won’t Apple just love it? And it just makes good sense.
G+ Sparks is a front end to Google Search that lets you identify particular topics that will assist in your use of Google Plus. Subjects can also include Featured Interests which are predefined based upon topics that others have found helpful.
Last, but not least, G+ Huddle is a messaging utility within the mobile app that lets you send text messages to every person in a particular circle. It’s a perfect tool for scheduling collaborative events.
As with any new tool, there are some tricks to getting off on the right foot. First, choose the right browser. As you might expect, Chrome runs circles around Firefox and IE when it comes to G+. Use it! And visit this site for the latest information and to download the Chrome extensions for G+ that really make it shine. And here’s a collaborative book about G+ that was actually written by 120+ early adopters. It’ll tell you everything you want to know including some great tips on privacy considerations, the user interface, formatting, and shortcuts. In addition, there are HOW-TOs that will walk you through everything to get the most out of Google Plus. Be sure to pick up the Google Plus Cheat Sheet and review these 25 Tips & Tricks as well as 15 Tips for Newbies. Finally, here’s some insight into What’s Coming Next. Now come join the fun!
Want an invite? Just drop us a note and include the word Google in your message. We’ll get one out to you promptly. Once you’re signed up, be sure to visit the VoIP Users Conference site for a quick list of everyone to put in your VoIP Circle. Enjoy!
Originally published: Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
whos.amung.us If you’re wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what’s happening. It’s a terrific resource both for us and for you.
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.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.
VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
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…
Incredible PBX: Adding Google Calendars with Asterisk 1.8
One of the exciting new features in Asterisk 1.8 is external calendar integration including iCal, caldav, Microsoft Exchange, and ews. Hats off to Terry Wilson at Digium® for his great work on the calendaring API. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much written about integrating the calendars into FreePBX®-based Asterisk® systems… until now. Because we’re all about free, our focus today will be Google Calendar integration, but we’ll provide you some links to get any of the other calendar types integrated into PBX in a Flash and Incredible PBX if that’s what floats your boat. In addition to being free, Google Calendar is one of the best calendaring apps on the planet. Its beauty lies in the incredible flexibility it provides for group scheduling and the sharing and transparent integration of dozens of calendars (both public and private) not to mention real-time updating with your favorite Android smartphones. Apple does much the same thing with iCal on the Mac and iPhone… for an annual fee.
The rainbow of colors you see in the left column of the screenshot above each represent a different calendar. All of the calendar entries from all of these calendars are integrated into the single calendar display on the right with a simple color scheme to identify where each calendar entry originated. As mentioned, these calendars can not only be from your friends and business associates, they also can be publicly available, read-only calendars for subject matter such as holidays, schedules of your favorite sports teams and rock bands, school calendars, etc. Take a look at iCalWorld to get a quick handle on what’s available. See also this Google resource.
The one bit of advice we would provide in setting up Google Calendar is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Create separate calendars for different individuals and for different types of events. And don’t mix business with personal. Also keep internal business events separate from those that you might want to share with customers. Down the road, this facilitates sharing just the information of importance to different groups of friends and business associates. Bottom Line: Spend a little time thinking about organization of your calendars. It will pay off handsomely down the road.
Once you integrate Google Calendar into Incredible PBX, you can use it to alert you to upcoming appointments, to schedule and activate conference calls, and even to log the date, time, length, and recipient of all your outbound and/or incoming phone calls.
For today, we’ll get the software installed and functioning. And we’ll help you set up a simple reminder system based upon appointment entries in your Google Calendar. We’ll also give you some good reference materials so that you can experiment a bit on your own. In coming weeks, we’ll build a time slips system to keep track of all your phone calls.
Prerequisites. As mentioned, you’ll need a Gmail account as well as Asterisk 1.8 and PIAF-Purple with Incredible PBX 1.8 to follow along in today’s tutorial. All of the pieces are optional except for Asterisk 1.8 and a fairly current version of FreePBX, but we’ll leave that exercise for the pioneers. The script is licensed as GPL code so knock yourself out.
The Gotchas. Nothing is ever easy, is it? There always are a few surprises to worry about. Here’s the current short list for Asterisk Calendaring. When you schedule a meeting or appointment with Google Calendar, there is an option to set an alert to remind you of the meeting at any time you like on a per appointment basis. So, if you have a meeting 50 miles from home, you could set the alert for 90 minutes in advance while a meeting next door could be set with a 5 minute alert. All of that works fine in Google Calendar. Unfortunately, in Asterisk 1.8.4, there’s a math bug that subtracts the hour differential between your time zone and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) from these alert times. If you happen to live in the GMT time zone, there’s no bug. However, those living on the East Coast of the U.S. will find their reminder calls arriving four hours too early. If you set an alert for 60 minutes before a scheduled meeting, Asterisk will call you 5 hours in advance. For our West Coast friends, it’s an 8 hour bug. Fortunately, the Asterisk Calendaring config file provides an option to override these alerts with a reminder call at a fixed number of minutes before each appointment. While it lacks the individual appointment flexibility to schedule alerts of different durations, it does work. So, for the time being, we’ll be using that.
Asterisk Calendar alerts also were supposed to be triggered only for events in which your Status has been set to Busy. A typical example would be a medical appointment. Instead, the alerts are generated for all calendar entries. So, if you’ve got 12 children and you’ve set all-day calendar entries to remind you of their birthdays each year, be forewarned that using your default Google Calendar will trigger a friendly reminder call at 11:50 p.m. on the night before each of your kids’ birthdays. Unless you and your spouse are both Night Owls, this might lead to some "WAF issues" if you get our drift. The workaround that we’ll implement today is to create a secondary appointments calendar and reserve it just to schedule meetings and appointments for which you wish to receive reminder calls at 10 minutes before each event. You can change the notification time to any fixed number of minutes desired. As we mentioned, one nice feature of Google Calendar is that entries on secondary calendars will automatically display on your main calendar. Just be sure to schedule the appointments on the correct calendar (we’ll show you how) if you want a reminder call.
Setting Up a Google Appointments Calendar. Before we get Asterisk configured for calendaring, let’s first set up your secondary Google appointments calendar. Log into the Gmail account that you either already use or will begin using for scheduling Calendar entries. Just click on the Calendar tab at the top of the screen and set up your default calendar if it doesn’t already exist. Once it’s set up, there will be a calendar list in the left margin under My Calendars. Just below your existing Calendar(s), there will be a Tasks entry, and below that will be an Add link to add a new calendar. Click on Add and fill in the main pieces of information as shown below. Use appointments for the name of the calendar and make sure you set the correct Time Zone for your hometown. Then save your entries by clicking the Create Calendar button.
Once you have created your new appointments calendar, we need one other piece of information to use it with Asterisk. Under My Calendars in the left margin, click on the down arrow beside appointments and choose Calendar Settings. That will bring up a form that looks like this:
The next to the last section of the form is entitled Calendar Address. You’ll see an entry to the right of the section title called Calender ID with a long alphanumeric string followed by @group.calendar.google.com. Write down the Calendar ID or copy it to clipboard. Don’t include @group.calendar.google.com! You can ignore the statement that the link is inoperative unless you make your calendar public. It actually works just fine with your Google credentials which we’ll configure as part of the Asterisk setup below.
Configuring Asterisk for Google Calendar Integration. PBX in a Flash and Incredible PBX come with most of the components you’ll need to get calendaring to work. However, there are a few missing pieces at the moment. These will require that Asterisk be recompiled, and we’ve built a little script to do all of it for you. Just log into your server as root and issue the following commands:
cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/setup-cal.sh
chmod +x setup-cal.sh
./setup-cal.sh
After you enter your Google credentials and Calendar ID, the script will temporarily shut down Asterisk, download the missing components for calendaring, recompile Asterisk, and customize the calendar setup with your Google credentials. Then the script will complete the setup and restart Asterisk. The whole process takes about 5 to 10 minutes.
Asterisk Calendar Configuration. Here are the pieces in the default Google Calendar config file that will be replaced with your personal settings:
[GoogleCalendar]
type = caldav
;url = https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/username@gmail.com/events/
url = https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/CalendarID@group.calendar.google.com/events/
user = username@gmail.com
secret = userpassword
refresh = 10
timeframe = 120
;
autoreminder = 10
;
channel = local/8005551212@from-internal
context = from-internal
extension = 225
waittime = 45
If you should ever need to make changes to these settings again, you’ll find the entries with your Google credentials at the end of the calendar.conf config file in /etc/asterisk. Remember to restart Asterisk after making any changes. The commented out URL entry is the one you’d use to access your main Google Calendar instead of the secondary appointments calendar we created above. If the GMT bug is ever fixed, this would be a step forward.
Extension 225 (C-A-L) is the extension that will be called to actually play back the reminder information. You’ll find this block of code at the top of extensions_custom.conf in the [from-internal-custom] context. You can make any adjustments you’d like. We simply set this up to give you a template to follow. As configured, the reminder will read you a summary, the starting time, location, and any description associated with each calendar entry. If you have a Cepstral voice in addition to Flite, just change the Flite entries to Swift. Then restart Asterisk: amportal restart.
Asterisk Calendar Test Drive. Asterisk keeps track of your scheduled events by checking your Google Calendar every 10 minutes. We recommend configuring reminders for calls 10 minutes before any scheduled event in the appointments calendar. What this means is you probably should never schedule an event expecting to get a reminder call if the event is less than about a half hour in the future. If you use a setting for the autoreminder time other than 10 minutes, this will obviously be different for you.
So let’s schedule an appointment for an hour from the current time. Click on the Calendar tab in Gmail. And then click on the down arrow beside the appointments calendar in the left column. Choose Create Event on this Calendar. You’ll get a form that looks like this. Click Save to store your new Calendar entry. Then go have a beer and wait for your call.
Where To Go From Here. We’ve just scratched the surface of what you can do with Asterisk 1.8 using Google Calendars. We recommend you now review the chapter in the new Asterisk Definitive Guide book that covers calendaring in some detail. It will give you a good handle on what’s possible. For a more technical discussion, take a look at this contribution from one of the PIAF Forum regulars. Amazing stuff! There’s also a good article in VoIP Today that’s worth a careful read. Be aware that, if you recompile Asterisk to add support for Microsoft Exchange, you probably will break the Google Calendar connection that we’ve outlined today. At least, we never have been able to get the two to coexist. If you have better luck, please post your results. The reason for the problem is that the Exchange connector depends upon neon-0.29 which is not yet part of CentOS 5.x. We’ll keep you posted on our progress. Enjoy!
Originally published: Monday, May 23, 2011
Changes in PBX in a Flash Distribution. In light of the events outlined in our recent Nerd Vittles article and the issues with Asterisk 1.8.4, the PIAF Dev Team has made some changes in our distribution methodology. As many of you know, PBX in a Flash is the only distribution that compiles Asterisk from source code during the install. This has provided us enormous flexibility to distribute new releases with the latest Asterisk code. Unfortunately, Asterisk 1.8 is still a work in progress to put it charitably. We also feel some responsibility to insulate our users from show-stopping Asterisk releases. Going forward, the plan is to reserve the PIAF-Purple default install for the most stable version of Asterisk 1.8. As of June 1, Asterisk 1.8.4.1 is the new PIAF-Purple default install. Other versions of Asterisk 1.8 (newer and older) will be available through a new configuration utility which now is incorporated into the PIAF 1.7.5.6.2 ISO.
Here’s how it works. Begin the install of a new PIAF system in the usual way by booting from your USB flash drive and pressing Enter to load the most current version of CentOS 5.6. When the CentOS install finishes, your system will reboot. Accept the license agreement, and choose the PIAF-Purple option to load the latest stable version of Asterisk 1.8. Or exit to the Linux CLI if you want a different version. Log into CentOS as root. Then issue a command like this: piafdl -p beta_1841 (loads Asterisk 1.8.4.1), piafdl -p 184 (loads Asterisk 1.8.4), piafdl -p 1833 (loads Asterisk 1.8.3.3), or piafdl -p 1832 (loads Asterisk 1.8.3.2). If there should ever be an outage on one of the PBX in a Flash mirrors, you can optionally choose a different mirror for the payload download by adding piafdl -c for the .com site, piafdl -d for the .org site, or piafdl -e for the .net site. Then add the payload switch, e.g. piafdl -c -p beta_1841.
Bottom Line: If you use the piafdl utility to choose a particular version of Asterisk 1.8, you are making a conscious decision to accept the consequences of your particular choice. We would have preferred implementation of a testing methodology at Digium before distribution of new Asterisk releases; however, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards. So, as new Asterisk 1.8 releases hit the street, they will be made available through the piafdl utility until such time as our PIAF Pioneers independently establish their reliability.
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
whos.amung.us If you’re wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what’s happening. It’s a terrific resource both for us and for you.
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.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.
VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
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…
Incredible Fax: Free Faxing Returns to Incredible PBX 1.8
It’s been a rocky road getting an open source (free) faxing alternative to work reliably with Asterisk® 1.8. To further complicate things, CentOS 5.6 was finally released which brought us a few more Asterisk 1.8 headaches and updates finally leading up to an all-new and nearly perfect PBX in a Flash 1.7.5.6 thanks in large part to Tom King. The new release also forced some under-the-covers modifications in Incredible PBX. Now you’re caught up on last week’s news. But what have we done for you lately?
Well, one alternative was to shift gears to the commercial Fax for Asterisk from Digium® which is supported in FreePBX 2.8 and 2.9 and includes one free license. But we’re open source fans and, of course, nothing beats free. Thanks to the efforts of a number of folks on the PBX in a Flash forums including our old pal, Joe Roper, there is an alternative that folks have been wrestling with for over two years. The combination of Hylafax, Avantfax, and IAXmodem is a compelling open source solution if you don’t need T.38-compatible faxing.1 The drawback has been the learning curve to install all the components and get them working reliably together. Well, for those using Incredible PBX 1.8 with PIAF-Purple and Asterisk 1.8, today we have a newly minted installation script that is simple enough that even a monkey can use it. If you know your own email address and your local area code AND you can find the Enter key on your keyboard, you are fully qualified to perform today’s installation. It’ll take you under 5 minutes! We’ve also got a nice little surprise for you toward the end of this article.
Prerequisites. You’ll first need to install the latest version of PBX in a Flash with the PIAF-Purple (Asterisk 1.8) payload. Then sign up for a free Google Voice account and install Incredible PBX 1.8. You’ll find complete installation instructions for everything here. Can you just wing it and run this installation script on a garden-variety Asterisk 1.8 machine? No. And the reason is that all of these components have dependencies which are too complex to cover in a 5-minute article. You might want to have a look at the A-Fax Project which is where we started. Suffice it to say, the combination of PIAF-Purple and Incredible PBX 1.8 provides the ideal platform on which to install Incredible Fax. If you prefer to do-it-yourself, by all means have at it. We lost about 10 years worth of hair even starting with the work of a dozen very talented Linux gurus who have been wrestling with this for over two years! But, hey, YMMV! We never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed. 😉
Installing Incredible Fax. Once you have your Incredible PBX 1.8 platform up and running, adding Incredible Fax is a stroll in the park. Just log into your server as root and issue the following commands. If you’ve downloaded Incredible PBX in the last few days, the script may already be on your system. In this case, just type /root/incrediblefax.sh to run it.
cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblefax.sh
chmod +x incrediblefax.sh
./incrediblefax.sh
After checking to make sure Incredible PBX 1.8 is installed, the script will prompt you to enter an email address where incoming faxes should be delivered. Then all of the necessary components will be installed after which the Avantfax install script will be run. With the exception of entering your local area code when prompted to do so, the correct response to every other question is to press the Enter key if you live in the U.S. or Canada. Don’t "improve" anything if you expect the end product to work reliably. For those outside North America, you’ll need to also make the usual adjustments to account for your country and city codes.
Avantfax has its own security model, but we’ve grown to appreciate the Apache authentication model which is built into PBX in a Flash so it’s been incorporated into Incredible Fax as well. When the install completes, just reboot your server to get everything working. On the PBX in a Flash web GUI, there will be a new Admin icon for Faxing. Or you can access Avantfax with a browser by going to http://serverIPaddress/avantfax. When prompted for your username and password, use maint and whatever your maint password happens to be. These can be reset with passwd-master. Literally everything has been preconfigured in Avantfax to get you going. Here’s a 3-minute video to show you how easy it is. Just don’t forget to reboot once the install completes.
If you want to be able to print to fax from Windows-based machines, then you’ll need to make one addition. Click on the small Toolbar icon in the upper right corner of the AvantFax home screen and choose New User from the pull-down Menu. For the user, enter Fax for the Name, fax for the Username, a secure password for Password, and an email address that is DIFFERENT from the one you used to set up Incredible Fax. Check the boxes for User Can Delete Faxes and User Can Fax From Any Modem. Finally, check the boxes for all four IAXmodems. Then click the Save button to add this new user.
A Word About Reliable Faxing. Suffice it to say that analog faxing over VoIP trunks is something less than ideal. If you want reliable analog faxing, then you’ll need a PSTN line from your favorite local telephone company. It doesn’t need any fancy add-ons like CallerID which doubles the price in many cities. Then you’ll need a properly configured analog telephone adapter (ATA) with at least one FXO port to support your Ma Bell phone line. Our favorite is the OBi110 which also can double as an additional Google Voice trunk for your PBX. But an SPA3102 will work equally well. It just costs more and gives you less.
Now that we’ve covered the obligatory warnings… will Incredible Fax work with a pure VoIP connection? Absolutely. We do it all the time. Is it flawless? No. Are there certain providers that are better than others? You bet. Do some providers not support faxing at all? Correct. Based on our 5+ years wrestling with this, here’s our recommendation. First, you’ll need a DID (i.e. phone number) from one of our recommended providers to handle inbound faxes. With the latest release of Asterisk 1.8, you no longer need a DID dedicated to faxing. In other words, you can use the same DID to receive incoming voice calls as well. The good news is that pay-as-you-go DIDs are dirt cheap. Some providers such as voip.ms offer DIDs for under $1 a month with 1¢ per minute calls. VoIP.ms also has unlimited inbound calling DIDs for under $4 a month. Other providers whose trunks we have found work reliably for VoIP faxing include Vitelity (see our special sign up deal below), Axvoice, Teliax, VoIPMyWay ($45 for first year with unlimited outbound and inbound calling with a local DID), and Future-Nine2. Google Voice trunks are hit and miss. We’re batting about .250 in our testing with Google Voice lines. Bottom Line: If VoIP faxing doesn’t work after you complete the install, it’s probably the fault of your VoIP trunk, not the setup. To make absolutely sure, connect a standard fax machine to an extension using an FXS telephone adapter and send a fax to that extension from the Avantfax web interface. You’ll find it works every time!
Configuring FreePBX for Incredible Fax. Here are the steps you’ll need to complete to get analog faxing working reliably with FreePBX. First, set up an account with one of the companies we’ve mentioned above. With voip.ms, create a subaccount on their site with credentials to use with the DID you purchased to link to that subaccount.
Unless you’re using today’s release of Incredible PBX, you’ll need to activate FreePBX’s Fax Configuration Module if you want to take advantage of Asterisk 1.8’s fax detection capabilities. It didn’t work reliably in previous Asterisk 1.8 releases. This module already is either available or already installed on your server. In the FreePBX GUI using a browser, choose Tools, Module Admin and then click on Fax Configuration. A drop-down list will provide several choices. Choose either Install or Enable depending upon the version of Incredible PBX you currently are running. Then click the Process button and finally Reload the settings when prompted.
Unless you installed Incredible PBX today, you’ll need to create a SIP trunk for your new provider in FreePBX using the credentials you set up on the provider’s web site. The VoIP.ms template now is included in Incredible PBX so you can just edit the existing one to add your credentials. And, at least with VoIP.ms, you can set the outbound CallerID to anything you like (as long as it’s legal). Unless you want a knock at your door, we wouldn’t recommend using the main number at the White House. Then put all of the settings below in the Outgoing Settings PEER Details where 1234567 is your main account number, subacctname is the name of the subaccount you created, and atlanta is your closest voip.ms server location:
username=1234567_subacctname
type=friend
trustrpid=yes
sendrpid=yes
secret=subacctpassword
nat=yes
insecure=port,invite
host=atlanta.voip.ms
fromuser=1234567_subacctname
disallow=all
context=from-trunk
canreinvite=nonat
allow=ulaw
For the registration string, it should look like the following. If you’re planning to only use the trunk for outbound faxing, then you can leave off the trailing DID number.
username:password@atlanta.voip.ms:5060/10-digit-DID
In addition to setting up the Trunk for your provider, you’ll also need to create an Outbound Route for sending faxes out through this trunk AND an Inbound Route to receive incoming faxes on the DID you purchased from your provider.
For the Outbound Route, we recommend setting the Dial Pattern with a prefix not otherwise used on your Incredible PBX so that you can make fax calls easily by dialing this prefix. For example, on our sample system, we used 7 so that fax calls could be made by dialing 7 plus a 10-digit number in the U.S. and Canada. Here’s how our Outbound Route for VoIP.ms looks in FreePBX, and the latest Incredible PBX release already has it in place as shown below:
For the Inbound Route, you want to specify the DID from your provider which must match the 10-digit number you affixed to the end of the trunk registration string above. If you don’t want to share this number for voice and fax calls, then simply direct these inbound fax calls to the Fax Custom Destination. Extension (329 spells F-A-X) also can be used to process incoming faxes and route them to your email address as well as the Avantfax web GUI.
Our experience suggests that using a single trunk for both voice and fax delivery is hit and miss so you may wish to consider adding an additional trunk just to support faxing. You’ll find the templates for adding a second Google Voice trunk in the /tmp directory, and complete instructions are available on the PIAF Forums. We’ve also provided preconfigured trunk settings for both Vitelity and VoIP.ms if you’d like to try those options as well. Just plug in your credentials and configure an inbound route to map incoming faxes to the Fax Custom Destination.
AvantFax in a Nutshell. Here’s a quick summary of the main features in the AvantFax web GUI. You can access the GUI by pointing a browser to the IP address of your server + /avantfax. After you enter your maint account name and maint password, the following screen will display with your Inbox. As noted, all of these incoming faxes also will be emailed to the account you set up when you ran the Incredible Fax install script.
The icons to the right of each thumbnail fax let you View, Rotate, Download PDF, Reply to Fax, Email PDF, Add a Note, Archive the Fax, and Permanently Delete the Fax.
At the top of the screen just to the right of Inbox is the option to Send a Fax. Here you’d specify the phone number to dial. Don’t forget the 7 and then a 10-digit number. Next you can attach a document from your local disk. Finally, fill in the blanks for the Fax Cover Sheet, and then click Send. Your fax will be on its way. You can monitor the progress of the fax transmission by clicking on Outbox. It’s also a good idea to fire up an SSH session to your server and run asterisk -rvvvvvvvvvv to monitor the first few calls to be sure all is well in Incredible FaxLand.
Where to Go Next. HylaFax and AvantFax are very mature open source products with a huge international following. We apologize for focusing primarily on U.S. and Canadian users today, but anything is possible with this software. The first piece you probably will want to tackle is adding Print to Fax capability on your Windows machine. The software you’ll need can be downloaded here. You’ll find excellent documentation on the setup by visiting the PBX in a Flash Forum. One little footnote for those using Windows 7. Microsoft and Apple are back to their old tricks so there are no Apple postscript print drivers in Windows 7. We’ve had equally good results using Dell’s 3100cn PS driver. Incidentally, there’s a similar print-to-fax utility for Mac OS X, but it’ll set you back $36. Here’s the link. HylaFax also maintains a terrific resource list for those that want additional goodies for PCs, Macs and Linux systems.
Originally published: Monday, May 2, 2011
Changes in PBX in a Flash Distribution. In light of the events outlined in our recent Nerd Vittles article and the issues with Asterisk 1.8.4, the PIAF Dev Team has made some changes in our distribution methodology. As many of you know, PBX in a Flash is the only distribution that compiles Asterisk from source code during the install. This has provided us enormous flexibility to distribute new releases with the latest Asterisk code. Unfortunately, Asterisk 1.8 is still a work in progress to put it charitably. We also feel some responsibility to insulate our users from show-stopping Asterisk releases. Going forward, the plan is to reserve the PIAF-Purple default install for the most stable version of Asterisk 1.8. As of June 1, Asterisk 1.8.4.1 is the new PIAF-Purple default install. Other versions of Asterisk 1.8 (newer and older) will be available through a new configuration utility which now is incorporated into the PIAF 1.7.5.6.2 ISO.
Here’s how it works. Begin the install of a new PIAF system in the usual way by booting from your USB flash drive and pressing Enter to load the most current version of CentOS 5.6. When the CentOS install finishes, your system will reboot. Accept the license agreement, and choose the PIAF-Purple option to load the latest stable version of Asterisk 1.8. Or exit to the Linux CLI if you want a different version. Log into CentOS as root. Then issue a command like this: piafdl -p beta_1841 (loads Asterisk 1.8.4.1), piafdl -p 184 (loads Asterisk 1.8.4), piafdl -p 1833 (loads Asterisk 1.8.3.3), or piafdl -p 1832 (loads Asterisk 1.8.3.2). If there should ever be an outage on one of the PBX in a Flash mirrors, you can optionally choose a different mirror for the payload download by adding piafdl -c for the .com site, piafdl -d for the .org site, or piafdl -e for the .net site. Then add the payload switch, e.g. piafdl -c -p beta_1841.
Bottom Line: If you use the piafdl utility to choose a particular version of Asterisk 1.8, you are making a conscious decision to accept the consequences of your particular choice. We would have preferred implementation of a testing methodology at Digium before distribution of new Asterisk releases; however, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards. So, as new Asterisk 1.8 releases hit the street, they will be made available through the piafdl utility until such time as our PIAF Pioneers independently establish their reliability.
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum or Wiki.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
whos.amung.us If you’re wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what’s happening. It’s a terrific resource both for us and for you.
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.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.
VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
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…
- Yes, we’re aware that HylaFax theoretically supports T.38 with the right hardware. Feel free to point us to someone who has it actually working with Asterisk 1.8. 🙄 [↩]
- Vitelity, Teliax, VoIPMyWay, and Future-Nine trunks require the following additional entries in your Inbound trunk settings: t38pt_rtp=no, t38pt_tcp=no, t38pt_udptl=no [↩]
Tips, Tricks & Apps to Get the Most Out of Your iPad 2
Rather than providing another glowing review of the iPad 2®, we thought it might be more helpful to sketch out the daily use potential of this incredible device based upon our experience and that of our 10-year old daughter. Yes, we’re one of the 30% who purchased an iPad 2 having already owned a number of first generation iPads. With double the RAM and nearly double the processing power of the first generation device, the one cautionary note that potential purchasers should heed is don’t buy the $499 model. Our daughter has survived a year with a $499 iPad only to find it completely full when she attempted to load Garage Band. And you will want Garage Band which is a storage hog by iPad standards. That’s not to suggest that Katherine’s iPad hasn’t served her well. She has almost 150 applications plus substantial collections of photos and music. What she doesn’t have is movies and video clips. With the addition of two cameras on the iPad 2 as well as Camera, AutoStitch, Movie, and Photo Booth apps and once you see what’s possible with iMovie, you’ll be begging for more storage capacity. Keep in mind that your storage capacity choice is irrevocable! There’s no way to add more storage later unless you buy a new device. And there’s no external storage other than removing apps and data through the iTunes interface. Perhaps more than anything else, that’s why the absence of a microSD slot on the iPad 2 is both a significant shortcoming and a huge disappointment.
The other suggestion we would offer to first-time iPad 2 purchasers is this. Get organized early. What we mean is decide early on how you’re going to use the 10 screens to organize your applications. Before the year is out, you will use all 10 screens assuming your bank account survives. At least now you can also create folders within a screen if you run out of room. Here’s our methodology, and it has served us pretty well. Screen 1 is reserved for the apps we use every day. The other screens are reserved for categories of applications: business, news and books, social, drawing and graphics, music, games, location-based services, and system/network management. If you’re a big gamer, artist, or musician, you may want to reserve two screens for your favorite category. The point is to spend a little time up front deciding how to organize applications. And, fortunately, you can move things around with the iTunes interface down the road so long as you leave one screen available for reorganizing.
You can also place six apps at the bottom of the display, and these are accessible from all 10 screens. Here’s where you’d want your browser, email or Gmail buttons, App Store, and Settings. That leaves you two more must-have apps. If you play music all the time, you’d probably want the iPod app. If you look at Photos all the time, you’d want the Photo app. But you get the idea, use Screen 1 for Daily Use Apps and the 6 bottom slots for your must-have at all times apps. If you don’t heed this advice, then you’ll find yourself having to search for apps on Screen 0 every time you want to use an application.
Favorite Apps. That brings us to our favorite apps. For ease of reference, we’ll cover these in the same way they are organized on our iPad 2. And, we’d love to hear about your favorite apps, too. Just post a comment. In the Daily Use category, here’s our list:
Calendar
Contacts
Mail
Maps
Videos
FaceTime
Camera
Photo Booth
EyeTV
YouTube
Hulu Plus
SlingPlayer
NetFlix
Bria
Travelin’ Man
OBiON
Pandora
Pulse News
Flipboard
iSWiFTER
Most of the above applications are self-explanatory, but we’ll mention a few. If you have a Mac, then EyeTV is a must-have addition. It lets you play and record all your favorite TV shows. Removing commercials from a one-hour show is about a 2-minute click-and-drag operation. And it’s incredibly easy to export your favorite recordings in either iPhone or iPad format. So long as iTunes is running on your Mac desktop, you can play your recordings or live TV at any time using either a WiFi or 3G network connection. SlingPlayer does much the same thing (only worse) with no recording capability, but it works with Windows machines as well as Macs, and it’s a standalone device. The Netflix app lets you stream movies and TV shows to your iPad for $7.99 a month, and it supports 6 simultaneous devices including many current generation HDTVs. OBiON is the VoIP app that lets you make free Google Voice calls in the U.S. and Canada using your $49 OBi device. You can read all about it here. If you have an Asterisk® PBX, then you’ll want Bria and our Travelin’ Man app for secure, remote, and free SIP communications. Finally, there’s the new iSWiFTER app which brings Flash video back from the dead on the iPad platform. It’s free for a limited time and, believe it or not, it’s available in the App Store.
Books & News. We spend every morning at the breakfast table with the Books & News page on our iPad. Here’s our list:
Kindle
iBooks
Friendly (Facebook)
Twitterific
AccuWeather
ABC News
ABC Player
CBS News
CNBC RT
CNN
Huff Post
Newsy
NYTimes
News Pro
USA Today
WSJ
Wash Post
The Daily
TV Guide
Tweetdeck
We don’t watch much Faux News which has become more akin to Incitement TV. We really hoped The Daily would be different. It’s not. But… to each his own.
Business Apps. This is kind of a catch-all page for stuff we use frequently as well as some apps we’ll probably never use again. Here’s our list:
iMovie
Keynote
Pages
Notes
Bento
Sorted
2Do
Todo
Zenbe Lists
Voice Memos
aNote Lite
Dictation
Due
FlipTime XL
MobileNoter
Pad Info
PaperDesk LT
News Rack
GoodReader
textPlus
Of all the ToDo applications that are available (and we’ve tried most of them), we like Todo the best. But, for quick reminders, you can’t beat Due. GoodReader, Keynote, and Pages are must have business apps, and iMovie is every bit as good as the app on the Mac. It’s about perfect for an on-the-go, need-it-in-a-hurry project.
Navigation & Wi-Fi Apps. When we’re on the road or looking for a WiFi Hot Spot or good place to eat, here’s our list:
CoPilot HD
Charts & Tides
Navionics Marines
ShipFinder HD
GPS Drive HD
GPS HD
Hurricane HD
UrbanSpoon
Epicurious
Where To Eat
ZAGAT
Zillow.com
WiFiGet HD
Dash Four
Mifi
World Atlas
Skobbler
SpeedBox
WiFon
Trapster
GPS navigation on the roads is hit and miss on the iPad. Nothing comes close to Google Maps navigation. CoPilot could be a contender except for the outdated maps and copy protection paranoia. On the water, both Charts & TIdes and Navionics Marine are fantastic. We compared both of them to a $10,000 Nav system on a very fine boat only yesterday. There was virtually no difference in the information available with the exception of the radar-enhanced features. If you’re always shopping for real estate, there is no finer app than Zillow, period. If you’re in to fast cars, there is no finer app than Trapster.
Games. Last but not least, everybody needs a diversion once in a while. Here’s a list of some of our favorite iPad games:
Game Center
GearedHD
Frogger
Foosball HD
AirCoaster
Angry Birds
Asphalt 5
JirboBreak
Doons HD
ElectroRacer
FarmVille (WAF)
Hit Tennis 2
iFooty
Pac-Man
Pinball HD
RealRacing HD
RealRacing GTI
Snowboarding
Checkers HD
Wacky Circus HD
This will probably be the category that changes the quickest with the new lightening-fast graphics and dual core processor on the iPad 2. Stay tuned!
Originally published: Monday, March 14, 2011
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum or Wiki.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
whos.amung.us If you’re wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what’s happening. It’s a terrific resource both for us and for you.
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.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.
VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
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…
Motorola Xoom: A Disappointing Introduction to Android 3.0
As the old saying goes, "Beauty is only skin deep." And so it is with Motorola’s new overhyped Xoom tablet featuring Android 3.0. We really wanted to like this device. The form factor sounded appealing, Android 3.0 is awesome, and dual cameras plus a dual-core processor had us chomping at the bit for a chance to try out this bad boy. It’s hard to find a new toy we don’t like, but then along comes the Xoom. It may weigh the same as an iPad, but it feels much more bulky. We personally like the form factor of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab compared to this monstrosity. And the dual core processor was a disappointment as well. We noticed very little difference in performance during our real world testing. You’re not going to hold this device with one hand for very long. It’s too heavy in all the wrong places. So we kept asking ourselves, "Where would you use it?" And the most likely places would be in bed or sitting on it’s $149 speaker dock connected to a big monitor. For both of those options, there are better solutions with an Apple TV and an iMac. The biggest fail may be the power button, positioned on the back of the unit at the exact spot most folks will use to hold the device to watch a movie.
Vaporware: 3.0 Strikes & You’re Out. We’ve saved the real Parade of Horrors for last. Motorola basically ruined the introduction of Android 3.0, designed specifically for the tablet form factor, by prematurely releasing this half-baked product. They hyped Verizon’s 4G network, but there’s not one 4G component in the device. You’ll have to send it back to Motorola for a week to get that upgrade… someday. Motorola advertised Adobe Flash support which still is the Achilles’ Heel of the iPad. But there’s no Flash to be found. Talk about ironic, you can’t view Motorola’s XOOM web site from the device. Flash, too, will be an upgrade… someday. Then there’s the non-functional microSD slot. Yep, you guessed it. Someday. Sorry, but $800++ for a prototype device is insulting. It also says something about Google’s lack of control over manufacturers. Seems to us it wouldn’t be that difficult to write a license agreement that says, if you want to use our trademarks on your device, you won’t release the product until a specified list of functions actually work. And pardon us for stating the obvious but advertising should be something more than a big pile of bullsh*t.
For those that are silly enough to buy the Xoom, there is some good news. The device was rooted in a matter of hours. So you can load all your favorite utilities and functions easily. Here’s a link to the cookbook. Be aware that rooting the device may deprive you of the ability to ever get the vaporware upgraded for 4G, Flash, and a functioning microSD slot. Of course, maybe that was the plan all along.
There are many good reviews of the Xoom and Android 3.0 if you want the usual Silicon Valley PR fluff from the folks that received the evaluation units. Start here and here. Suffice it to say, it’s a major upgrade to Android. We like the new UI; however, we’re not all that keen on the lack of buttons and particularly the placement of the Home and Back icons in the lower left corner of the screen. 90% of the world is right-handed. So why you’d position the most used screen real estate in the most difficult place to access it with your right hand while holding the device in your left hand is a real head-scratcher.
Finally, a word about data plans. In order to purchase our unit at full retail from Best Buy, we had to buy at least one month of Verizon service. In our law school days, this used to be called tying in antitrust law. Since it makes corporations extra money, it’s probably fine today. Verizon, however, has taken greed to a whole new level. And this is just for 3G service. 4G reportedly will cost a few cents more. 1GB of data will cost you $20 a month. That’s about two 4-hour car trips with a teenager using the device. 3GB of data will cost you $35, 5GB runs $50, and 10GB is a whopping $80. As a point of reference, AT&T’s 2GB data plan with equivalent 3G service is $25 for the iPad. So, yes, you’ll be using WiFi a lot thanks to the greed of Verizon and AT&T. Of course, you can’t buy a WiFi-only unit. That’ll be available someday after Verizon has gotten their initial pound of flesh. And, at least for us, WiFi performance compared with the iPad and Galaxy Tab was no great shakes. What is certain is that, with this device, you probably will want to consider tethering from a cellphone that still has an unlimited data plan unless you’re willing to give up eating lunch in order to pay your monthly Verizon bill. HINT: Read our review of the Optimus V and Virgin Mobile’s $25 a month unlimited 3G data deal. Or Sprint’s Mobile HotSpot for the HTC Evo runs $1 a day and provides unlimited 4G data at a fraction of the cost of Verizon’s 3G offerings.
Footnote: Following our return of the device and cancellation of the service, we received a bill from Verizon which included an undisclosed $35 activation fee in addition to the prorated charges for data service. AT&T charges no activation fees on iPads and other tablets. With this addition, it boosts the cost of the Motorola Xoom sufficiently to make it more costly than even the top-of-the-line iPad 2. After 30 minutes on the phone with Verizon "customer care," a supervisor finally waived the $35 fee. And you thought no company could rival AT&T’s dismal track record. Think again.
My 10-year-old daughter echoed our sentiments about the Motorola Xoom: "Thanks. I’ll keep my iPad." In case you’ve forgotten, Apple will announce a new iPad later this week, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a new processor and (working) microSD slot in addition to the oft-reported camera additions. We recommend you wait for a better alternative! There will be many, not someday, but very soon. And, indeed, there now are. See our recent article.
Originally published: Monday, February 28, 2011
Need help with Asterisk®? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum or Wiki.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
whos.amung.us If you’re wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what’s happening. It’s a terrific resource both for us and for you.
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.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.
VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
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…
Incredible PBX 1.8: New OpenVZ and Cloud Editions
Another exciting week in the Asterisk® community with the introduction of Asterisk 1.8.2 last Friday. It's now the official PIAF-Purple payload so you can simply download the current ISO to take it for a spin. Most of the pesky bugs in Asterisk 1.8.0 and 1.8.1 now have been addressed. Let us know if you find some new ones.
While the Asterisk Dev Team has been hard at work on Asterisk 1.8.2, we've turned our attention to the cloud and VoIP virtualization. We have three new products to introduce today. The first lets you install PIAF-Purple with Asterisk 1.8.2 using a new OpenVZ template. The second lets you run Incredible PBX 1.8 as a virtual machine using the new PIAF-Purple 1.8.2 OpenVZ template. Finally, we'll show you how to run Incredible PBX 1.8 in the cloud with hosted VoIP service from RentPBX.com for $15 a month with a free local phone number and free Google Voice calling in the U.S. and Canada. So let's get started.
Using the OpenVZ PIAF-Purple Template. If you haven't heard of OpenVZ templates before, you've missed one of the real technological breakthroughs of the last decade. Rather than wading through the usual 30-minute ISO installation drill, with an OpenVZ template, all of the work is done for you. And it's quick. You can build a dozen PIAF-Purple systems using an OpenVZ template in about 15 minutes with a per system cost of less than $50. See Comment #2 below for an extra special Dell half-price server deal this week. And it's incredibly easy to then tie all of these systems together using either SIP or IAX trunks. Just follow our previous tutorial. For resellers and developers that want to try various Asterisk configurations before implementation and for trainers and others that want to host dedicated Asterisk systems for customers, the OpenVZ platform is a perfect fit. Read our original two-part article to get up to speed on Proxmox, virtualization, and IPtables with OpenVZ. Then continue on here.
Thanks to Darrell Dillman (aka dad311 on the PIAF Forums), there already is a 64-bit OpenVZ template of PIAF-Purple with Asterisk 1.8.2. Just download the template to your Desktop and then, using the Proxmox console, choose Appliance Templates, Upload File to upload the OpenVZ template into your Proxmox server platform. Once installed, you can build Asterisk 1.8.2 virtual machines to your heart's content... in less than a minute apiece. Just choose Virtual Machine, Create to create a new virtual machine using the OpenVZ template you just uploaded. In the Configuration section, choose OpenVZ for the Type and pick your new OpenVZ template from the pulldown list. Fill in a Host Name, Disk Space maximum (in GB), and (root) Password. The other defaults should be fine. In the Network section of the form, change to the Bridged Ethernet (veth) option which means the VM will obtain its IP address from your DHCP server. Make sure your DNS settings are correct for your LAN. Here's how a typical OpenVZ creation form will look:
Once the image is created, start up the virtual machine, wait about 70 seconds for the system to load, and then click on Open VNC Console. Asterisk will be loaded and running. You can verify this on the status display. You can safely ignore the status messages pertaining to IPtables assuming iptables -nL shows that IPtables is functioning properly. With the exception of text-to-speech (TTS), you now have a PIAF-Purple base platform running Asterisk 1.8.2 and FreePBX 2.8. Be sure you always run it behind a hardware-based firewall with no port exposure to the Internet.
Before you do anything else, run passwd-master to secure the passwords for FreePBX GUI access to your system. Don't forget!
If you're planning to install Incredible PBX below or if you don't need text-to-speech on your system, you can skip this next step which gets 64-bit TTS installed. Otherwise, here are the commands to get it working:
cd /root
./install-flite
Note to Our Pioneers. To those that tested the new OpenVZ template this past week, THANK YOU! Be advised that we now have incorporated several of the recommended tweaks which were documented in the PIAF Forums. The install procedure outlined above explains the new behavior of the slightly improved OpenVZ template which now is available for download. We recommend you switch.
Asterisk CLI Change. Finally, just a heads up that (once again) the Asterisk Dev Team appears to have changed the default behavior of the Asterisk CLI. With Asterisk 1.8.2, if you make outbound calls after loading the CLI, you will notice that call progress no longer appears in the CLI. To restore the standard behavior (since Moses), issue the following command: core set verbose 3. 🙄
Installing Incredible PBX on OpenVZ Systems. We won't repeat the entire Incredible PBX article here. If you want the background on the product, read the latest article. To get everything working with an OpenVZ system, there are only three steps:
1. Set Up Your Google Voice Account
2. Run the Incredible PBX VM Installer
3. Configure a Softphone
Configuring Google Voice. You'll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support The Incredible PBX. The more obscure the username (with some embedded numbers), the better off you will be. This will keep folks from bombarding you with unsolicited Gtalk chat messages, and who knows what nefarious scheme will be discovered using Google messaging six months from now. So why take the chance. Keep this account a secret!
We've tested this extensively using an existing Gmail account, and inbound calling is just not reliable. The reason seems to be that Google always chooses Gmail chat as the inbound call destination if there are multiple registrations from the same IP address. So, be reasonable. Do it our way! Set up a dedicated Gmail and Google Voice account, and use it exclusively with The Incredible PBX. Google Voice no longer is by invitation only so, if you're in the U.S. or have a friend that is, head over to the Google Voice site and register. If you're living on another continent, see MisterQ's posting for some tips on getting set up.
You must choose a telephone number (aka DID) for your new account, or Google Voice calling will not work... in either direction. Google used to permit outbound Gtalk calls using a fake CallerID, but that obviously led to abuse so it's over! You also have to tie your Google Voice account to at least one working phone number as part of the initial setup process. Your cellphone number will work just fine. Don't skip this step either. Just enter the provided 2-digit confirmation code when you tell Google to place the test call to the phone number you entered. Once the number is registered, you can disable it if you'd like in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. But...
IMPORTANT: Be sure to enable the Google Chat option as one of your phone destinations in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. That's the destination we need for The Incredible PBX to work its magic! Otherwise, all inbound and outbound calls will fail. If you don't see this option, you may need to call up Gmail and enable Google Chat there first. Then go back to the Google Voice Settings.
While you're still in Google Voice Settings, click on the Calls tab. Make sure your settings match these:
- Call Screening - OFF
- Call Presentation - OFF
- Caller ID (In) - Display Caller's Number
- Caller ID (Out) - Don't Change Anything
- Do Not Disturb - OFF
Click Save Changes once you adjust your settings. Under the Voicemail tab, plug in your email address so you get notified of new voicemails. Down the road, receipt of a Google Voice voicemail will be a big hint that something has come unglued on your PBX.
Running The Incredible PBX Installer. Log into your server as root and issue the following commands to set up The Incredible PBX:
cd /root
rm incrediblepbx18-vm.x
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx18-vm.x
chmod +x incredible*
./incrediblepbx18-vm.x
passwd-master
When The Incredible PBX install begins, you'll be prompted for the following:
Google Voice Account Name
Google Voice Password
Google Voice 10-digit Phone Number
Gmail Notification Address
FreePBX maint Password
The Google Voice Account Name is the Gmail address for your new dedicated account, e.g. joeschmo@gmail.com. Don't forget @gmail.com! The Google Voice Password is the password for this dedicated account. The Google Voice Phone Number is the 10-digit DID for this dedicated account. We need this if we ever need to go back to the return call methodology for outbound calling. For now, it's not necessary. But who knows what the future holds. 🙄 The Gmail Notification Address is the email address where you wish to receive alerts when incoming and outgoing Google Voice calls are placed using The Incredible PBX. And your FreePBX maint Password is the password you'll use to access FreePBX. You'll actually set it by running passwd-master after The Incredible PBX completes. We need this password to properly configure the CallerID Superfecta for you. By the way, none of this confidential information ever leaves your machine... just in case you were wondering.
Now have another 5-minute cup of coffee, and consider a modest donation to Nerd Vittles... for all of our hard work. 😉 You'll find a link at the top of the page. While you're waiting (and so you don't forget), go ahead and configure your hardware-based firewall to support Google Voice. See the next section for what's required. Without completing this firewall configuration step, no calls will work! When the installer finishes, READ THE SCREEN just for grins.
Here's a short video demonstration of the original Incredible PBX installer process. It still works just about the same way except there's no longer a second step to get things working.
One final word of caution is in order regardless of your choice of providers: Do NOT use special characters in any provider passwords, or nothing will work!
Before you do anything else, run passwd-master again to resecure the passwords for FreePBX GUI access to your system. Don't forget!
Firewall Configuration. We hope you've taken our advice and installed a hardware-based firewall in front of The Incredible PBX. It's your phone bill. You'll need to make one adjustment on the firewall. Map UDP 5222 traffic to the internal IP address of The Incredible PBX. This is the port that Google Voice uses for phone calls and Google chat. You can decipher the IP address of your server by logging into the server as root and typing status.
Extension Password Discovery. If you're too lazy to look up your extension 701 password using the FreePBX GUI, you can log into your server as root and issue the following command to obtain the password for extension 701 which we'll need to configure your softphone or color videophone in the next step:
mysql -uroot -ppassw0rd -e"select id,data from asterisk.sip where id='701' and keyword='secret'"
The result will look something like the following where 701 is the extension and 18016 is the randomly-generated extension password exclusively for your Incredible PBX:
+-----+-------+
id data
+-----+-------+
701 18016
+-----+-------+
Configuring a SIP Phone. There are hundreds of terrific SIP telephones and softphones for Asterisk-based systems. Once you get things humming along, you'll want a real SIP telephone such as the $50 Nortel color videophone we've recommended above. You'll also find lots of additional recommendations on Nerd Vittles and in the PBX in a Flash Forum. If you're like us, we want to make damn sure this stuff works before you shell out any money. So, for today, let's download a terrific (free) softphone to get you started. We recommend X-Lite because there are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. So download your favorite from this link. Install and run X-Lite on your Desktop. At the top of the phone, click on the Down Arrow and choose SIP Account Settings, Add. Enter the following information using your actual password for extension 701 and the actual IP address of your Incredible PBX server instead of 192.168.0.251. Click OK when finished. Your softphone should now show: Available.
Incredible PBX Test Flight. The proof is in the pudding as they say. So let's try two simple tests. First, let's place an outbound call. Using the softphone, dial your 10-digit cellphone number. Google Voice should transparently connect you. Answer the call and make sure you can send and receive voice on both phones. Second, from another phone, call the Google Voice number that you've dedicated to The Incredible PBX. Your softphone should begin ringing shortly. If not, make certain you are not logged into Google Chat on a Gmail account with these same credentials. If everything is working, congratulations!
Here's a brief video demonstration showing how to set up a softphone to use with your Incredible PBX, and it also walks you through several of the dozens of Asterisk applications included in your system.
Solving One-Way Audio Problems. If you experience one-way audio on some of your phone calls, you may need to adjust the settings in /etc/asterisk/sip_custom.conf. Just uncomment the first two lines by removing the semicolons. Then replace 173.15.238.123 with your public IP address, and replace 192.168.0.0 with the subnet address of your private network. There are similar settings in gtalk.conf that can be activated although we've never had to use them. In fact, we've never had to use any of these settings. After making these changes, save the file(s) and restart Asterisk: amportal restart.
Running Incredible PBX in the Cloud. We've saved the best for last today. For many folks, you may want to experiment with VoIP technology without making a hardware investment and without having to master the intricacies of managing your own server and network. That's what Cloud Computing is all about. And we've searched far and wide to find you the perfect platform. As with many of you, one of our top priorities is always cost. While many providers were willing to provide Nerd Vittles with a few sheckles for pitching their product, only one stepped forward with a price point that we think is irresistible. And, for the record, we waived any compensation other than a few test accounts to get things working properly, so that all of the savings could be passed on to you! So here's the deal. $15 a month gets you your own PIAF-Purple server in the cloud at RentPBX.com. Just use this coupon code: BACK10, pick an east coast or west coast server to host your new system, choose the PIAF-Purple 1.7.5.5.4 install option, set up a username and very secure password, and you're off to the races. Once your account is established, here's the 5-minute procedure to install the special RentPBX-edition of Incredible PBX to begin making free calls in the U.S. and Canada through Google Voice.
Begin by Configuring Google Voice as outlined above. Then log into your RentPBX account using SSH and the port assigned to your account. For Windows users, download Putty from here. The SSH command will look something like this:
ssh -p 21422 root@209.249.149.108
Issue the following commands to download and run The Incredible PBX installer for RentPBX:
cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx18-rentpbx.x
chmod +x incrediblepbx18-rentpbx.x
./incrediblepbx18-rentpbx.x
passwd-master
Now just follow along in the Incredible PBX virtual machine tutorial which we've included above. Remember that your new Incredible PBX is sitting directly on the Internet! So don't forget to run passwd-master when you finish the install, or your system is vulnerable. Ours was attacked within minutes!
Securing Your RentPBX Server. With the exception of our WhiteList application, everything is working on your RentPBX server. While we continue to work on the WhiteList component (reread this section of the article in a week or so to get the latest updates), you need to secure your system to avoid endless hack attempts on your SIP resources. Here's how. First, write down the IP addresses of your RentPBX server and your home network. Second, print out your existing IPtables configuration. The file to print is /etc/sysconfig/iptables. Third, make a backup copy of the file. While logged into your server with SSH, the easiest way is like this:
cd /etc/sysconfig
cp iptables iptables.bak
Now we need to edit the iptables file itself: nano -w iptables. Then search for the line that contains 5060: Ctrl-W, 5060, Enter. At the beginning of this line, add # to comment out the line. With the cursor still on this line, press Ctrl-K then Ctrl-U twice. This will duplicate the line. Move to the second commented line and remove #. Use the right cursor to move across the line to --dport. Then insert the following using the IP address of your RentPBX server, e.g.
-s 229.149.129.248
Be sure there's at least one space before and after the new text. Now duplicate that line with Ctrl-K and Ctrl-U twice. Change the IP address on the second line to the public IP address of your home or office network. Repeat this process for every IP address where you intend to use a SIP phone connected to your RentPBX server. Make additional entries for your SIP providers as well. If you want to sleep better, you can make similar changes to the SSH port entry to restrict it to your home/office IP address. It's the line immediately above the 5060 entry. Ditto for port 80 which is web access. Be very careful here. A typo will lock you out of your own server! When you're finished, save the changes: Ctrl-X, Y, Enter. Then restart IPtables: service iptables restart.
As always, we strongly recommend that you not put all of your VoIP eggs in one basket. Google Voice does go down from time to time. Vitelity is a perfect complement because the costs are low and you only pay for the service you use. A discount sign up link is below. And Vitelity has contributed generously to both the Nerd Vittles and PBX in a Flash projects. So please support them. Enjoy!
Originally published: Monday, January 17, 2011
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
whos.amung.us If you're wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what's happening. It's a terrific resource both for us and for you.
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.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.
VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
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...
Free Asterisk Solutions
