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JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX WikiHome Run: Asterisk Baseball Scores & Schedules with Gtalk
Last week we introduced the new Worldwide Weather Station for Asterisk® 1.8 using Google's new Google Talk Guru. And, as promised, today we bring you the first of several new Asterisk applications to retrieve sports scores and schedules from the convenience of your telephone. With Google Talk Guru, you can retrieve the latest Atlanta Braves info by issuing this Chat command: score braves. What you'll receive in reply using Google Chat within Gmail would look something like this:
Baseball:
Atlanta Braves 2 - Milwaukee Brewers 1
Next game: @ Milwaukee Brewers, 6 Apr 3:10am
mlb.mlb.com
With today's installation, you'll also be able to dial M-L-B (652) from any Asterisk extension and retrieve the latest score and next game schedule for any one of 10 Major League Baseball teams by pressing a single button. For example, to retrieve the latest Atlanta Braves score and next game schedule, press 2. To try out our demo, just dial 425-406-4532 from any phone in the U.S. Here's the entire list which you can modify to meet your own requirements:
0 - Yankees
1 - Mets
2 - Braves
3 - Reds
4 - Marlins
5 - Orioles
6 - Pirates
7 - Royals
8 - Dodgers
9 - White Sox
As was true with weather forecasts, retrieval of baseball scores and schedules using Google Talk Guru takes less than a second for almost any team. And, in addition to playing these scores and schedules over the phone using Asterisk 1.8, we've added the ability to also forward the results to your favorite email address. If you're already familiar with last week's installation procedure, then drop down to the Quick Installation topic. The whole drill should take you no more than a couple minutes. If you're new to all of this, keep reading.
How It Works. Here's a quick summary of how all this works. With the Google Talk Guru, you can send a query as a text message to guru@googlelabs.com. You then get a reply message in Google Talk with the answer to your query. What we've done is add this querying functionality to your Asterisk dialplan with some preassigned baseball teams to obtain the latest sports scores and schedules. Once the response arrives, we've added a PHP application that puts the text (as shown above) into something that's a little more TTS friendly for Flite and Cepstral. If you're curious about how to do all of this, take a look at the dialplan and PHP code in the links below. It's not hard, but it is tedious. One little typo and nothing works. Ask us how we know. 😉
Prerequisites. If you're new to all of this, here's a quick list of what you'll need. First, you'll need a PBX in a Flash server running the very latest Asterisk 1.8. We call it PIAF-Purple. Bidirectional Google chatting only works in the most recent releases of Asterisk 1.8 so, no, you can't wing it with an earlier release and expect a working system. Next you'll need to add Google Voice and Chat support. You can install these components yourself, or you can use Incredible PBX 1.8. The latest release as of today has this application preinstalled. If you dial 652 from an extension on your Incredible PBX and are prompted to choose a team for the latest score and schedule after hearing a list of the available teams, then your installation is complete even though it won't work until you invite yourself to chat with guru@googlelabs.com using the same Gmail account you're using for Google Voice on your Asterisk server. If dialing 652 doesn't work, then you'll need to add this application to your existing Incredible PBX 1.8 installation by following the simple steps below in addition to enabling chats with guru@googlelabs.com. Almost any other (current) Asterisk 1.8 server should work as well so long as you've installed FreePBX, PHP and the Flite or Cepstral voice synthesizer. But then you're on your own. If you're a nuts-and-bolts Asterisk guy, then you should be able to decipher what needs to be done by reading through this tutorial.
Quick Installation. Assuming you have all the prerequisites in place, today's installation is about a five minute chore. There are 3 easy steps:
(1) While signed in to Gmail with the same account credentials being used for Google Voice on your Asterisk server, activate chat temporarily and invite yourself to chat with guru@googlelabs.com. Run a test query using the Braves example above. IMPORTANT: Once it works, disable chat on your desktop, or Google Voice and Chat will no longer work with Asterisk!
(2) Download the Baseball Scores & Schedules application into the agi-bin directory on your Asterisk system. Here are the commands after logging into your server as root:
cd /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin
wget http://nerd.bz/eimkfZ
tar zxvf nv-mlb-google.tgz
(3) While still logged in as root, switch to the /etc/asterisk directory and edit extensions_custom.conf with this command:
nano -w extensions_custom.conf
Search for 652 and delete any existing lines with that extension. Then cut-and-paste the following code inserting it just below the [from-internal-custom] context marker (but above any other context marker) or in the existing position if you deleted existing 652 lines. Use nano -w extensions_custom.conf to open the file, or word wrap will delete part of the cut-and-paste code! Once you've saved your changes, reload your Asterisk dialplan:
asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
Customization. By default, the application is set to use Flite as the text-to-speech (TTS) engine. If you have installed Cepstral, you can change to Cepstral. In the /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin directory, edit nv-mlb-google.php and change $ttspick = 0 to $ttspick = 1. Do not delete the trailing semicolon! If you want the sports scores and schedules also emailed to you when you dial them up, then insert your actual email address in the $email variable and set $emailscore = 1.
You need not use the 10 teams that are preconfigured in the application. You can choose your own. First, write down the names of the 10 teams you wish to use. Do NOT use city names! Make a backup of extensions_custom.conf: cp extensions_custom.conf ext_custom.bak. Then carefully edit /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf using nano -w filename. Move down to the 652,3 and 652,5 lines and make the necessary changes using the teams you have chosen. Finally, move down to 652,50 and replace Yankees with your 0 choice, 612,52 Mets with your 1 choice, etc. Save your changes and reload your dialplan. NOTE: For multi-word teams such as White Sox, be sure to use an underscore between the words, NOT A SPACE, e.g. white_sox.
If you want to retrieve scores and schedules for more than 10 teams, the easiest solution is to clone all of the 652 dialplan code and renumber each occurrence of 652 to 653. HINT: Some 652 entries are actually embedded in the code as well as in the extension numbers. Be sure to renumber those entries as well. Use Ctrl-W to find each 652 occurrence in the new context, and you won't inadvertently miss one. That gets you 10 more teams. Repeat as desired. Note also that you need not announce 10 teams in the voice prompt unless you want to. If you only plan to follow 3 teams, then alter the initial voice prompt to only announce those teams. You do NOT need to delete the dialplan code that actually picks other teams. No one will ever know. 😉
Adding a Miscellaneous Destination. This step is optional. Access FreePBX with your browser, and choose Setup, Misc Destination. If it's not already there, add a new entry for MLBScores with 652 as the Dial entry. Save your entry and then click the Red Bar to reload Asterisk.
Taking Baseball Scores and Schedules for a Spin. Now we should be all set. Just pick up an extension on your system and dial 652. You'll be prompted to enter a one-digit code. Punch in 5 and check out the latest score and next game for the Baltimore Orioles. Enjoy!
Housekeeping 101. Temporary files in /tmp get cleaned up by Linux housekeeping automatically. Temporary files stored elsewhere don't unless you're using Incredible PBX. The weather scripts store .wav files with your requested weather forecasts in /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/tts. So, from time to time, make a mental note to remove all of these files with a command like this:
rm -f /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/tts/tts*
Or just log into your Asterisk® server as root and edit the following file: nano -w /etc/crontab. Move to the bottom of the file and insert the following code on a blank line:
01 0 * * * root rm -f /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/tts/tts* > /dev/null
This code will delete all of the TTS files in the tts folder every night. Now save your changes: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter.
Best of Nerd Vittles Link. This application also will be available on our Best of Nerd Vittles site shortly. Enjoy!
Originally published: Monday, April 11, 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...
Worldwide Weather Forecasts with Asterisk and Google Talk
Wouldn't it be nice if you could just describe your product and folks would know what you meant? Well, thanks to the lawyers, you can't. So, for all sorts of legal reasons, today's new product will not be called the Asterisk® Weather Station: Whole Earth Edition. Nor will it be called the Google® Weather Station even though we'll be using Google Lab's new Google Talk Guru. We've now written so many weather applications for Asterisk that we're thinking of changing our name to Willard Scott. Ooops! Can't do that either. And, yes, we used to have a Worldwide Weather application for Asterisk, but it died when Channel4.com discontinued providing weather data. The good news is that this forced us to take a look at Google's new Google Talk Guru which is nothing short of incredible. Weather reports are just the tip of the iceberg. We'll have an app to retrieve your favorite sports scores soon. To retrieve the latest Atlanta Braves info, just issue the Chat command: score braves. Here's the answer:
Baseball:
Atlanta Braves 2 - Milwaukee Brewers 1
Next game: @ Milwaukee Brewers, 6 Apr 3:10am
mlb.mlb.com
To give you some idea of performance, retrieval of a weather forecast using the Google Talk Guru takes less than a second for almost any location in the world. In addition to playing these forecasts over the phone using Asterisk 1.8, we've also added the ability to retrieve a forecast by phone and forward it on to your email address. Here's the result from weather paris:
Weather:
Paris, France
13°C, Clear
Wind: W 8 km/h
Hum: 53%
Mon: 6°C-14°C, Partly Cloudy
Tue: 7°C-18°C, Partly Cloudy
Wed: 8°C-23°C, Partly Cloudy
HINT: If you prefer zip codes or international postal codes, those all seem to return good results as well. We've tested U.S., Canada, and U.K. codes with no problems. Mexico, unfortunately, uses 5-digit codes just like the U.S. so those don't work. Now if we could just get rid of centigrade and kilometers for the metrically challenged, it would be almost perfect.
How It Works. Here's a quick summary of how all this works. With the Google Talk Guru, you can send a query as a text message to guru@googlelabs.com. You then get a reply message in Google Talk with the answer to your query. What we've done is add this querying functionality to your Asterisk dialplan with some preassigned cities to obtain weather forecasts. You can change them in any way you like. Once the response arrives, we've got a PHP application that puts the text (as shown above) into something that's a little more TTS friendly for Flite and Cepstral. Finally, we've added the option to email you the results as well as speaking them over the phone. If you're curious about how to do all of this, take a look at the dialplan and PHP code in the links below. It's not hard, but it is tedious. One little typo and nothing works. Ask us how we know. 😉
Prerequisites. If you've previously installed one of the Nerd Vittles Weather Applications or if you're using an older version of Incredible PBX 1.8 that doesn't include this app out of the box, then today's installation drill shouldn't take you more than 5 or 10 minutes. If you're new to all of this, then here's a quick list of what you'll need. First, you'll need a PBX in a Flash server running the very latest Asterisk 1.8. We call it PIAF-Purple. Bidirectional Google chatting only works in the most recent releases of Asterisk 1.8 so, no, you can't wing it with an earlier release and expect a working system. Next you'll need to add Google Voice and Chat support. You can install these components yourself, or you can use Incredible PBX 1.8. The latest release as of today has this application preinstalled. If you dial 612 from an extension on your Incredible PBX and are prompted to choose a city for your weather report after hearing a list of cities, then your installation is complete even though it won't work until you invite yourself to chat with guru@googlelabs.com using the same Gmail account you're using for Google Voice on your Asterisk server. If dialing 612 doesn't work or merely prompts for a number, you'll need to add this application to your existing Incredible PBX 1.8 installation by following the simple steps below in addition to enabling chats with guru@googlelabs.com. Almost any other (current) Asterisk 1.8 server should work as well so long as you've installed FreePBX, PHP and the Flite or Cepstral voice synthesizer. But then you're on your own. If you're a nuts-and-bolts Asterisk guy, then you should be able to decipher what needs to be done by reading through this tutorial.
Quick Installation. Assuming you have all the prerequisites in place, today's installation is about a five minute chore. There are 3 easy steps:
(1) While signed in to Gmail with the same account credentials being used for Google Voice on your Asterisk server, activate chat temporarily and invite yourself to chat with guru@googlelabs.com. Run a test query using one of the examples above. IMPORTANT: Once it works, disable chat on your desktop, or Google Voice and Chat will no longer work with Asterisk!
(2) Download the Google Worldwide Weather application into the agi-bin directory on your Asterisk system. Here are the commands after logging into your server as root:
cd /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin
wget http://nerd.bz/fCcdOP
tar zxvf nv-weather-google.tgz
(3) While still logged in as root, switch to the /etc/asterisk directory and edit extensions_custom.conf with this command:
nano -w extensions_custom.conf
Search for 612 and delete any existing lines with that extension. Then cut-and-paste the following code inserting it below the [from-internal-custom] context marker (but above any other context marker) or in the existing position if you deleted existing 612 lines. Use nano -w extensions_custom.conf to open the file, or word wrap will delete part of the cut-and-paste code! Once you've saved your changes, reload your Asterisk dialplan:
asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
Customization. By default, the application is set to use Flite as the text-to-speech (TTS) engine. If you have installed Cepstral, you can change the app to Cepstral quickly. In the /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin directory, edit nv-weather-google.php and change $ttspick = 0 to $ttspick = 1. Do not delete the trailing semicolon! If you want the weather reports also emailed to you when you dial them up, then insert your actual email address in the $email variable and set $emailforecast = 1.
Worldwide Weather Forecasts for Asterisk is preconfigured for the following cities:
0 - Tokyo
1 - Washington
2 - Berlin
3 - Paris
4 - Honolulu
5 - London
6 - Moscow
7 - Sydney
8 - Toronto
9 - Zurich
You need not use the 10 cities that are preconfigured in the application. You can choose your own. First, write down the names of the 10 cities you wish to use. Do NOT add states or countries! Make a backup of extensions_custom.conf: cp extensions_custom.conf ext_custom.bak. Then carefully edit /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf using nano -w filename. Move down to the 612,3 and 612,5 lines and make the necessary changes using the city names you have chosen. Finally, move down to 612,50 and replace Tokyo with your 0 choice, 612,52 with your 1 choice, etc. Save your changes and reload your dialplan. NOTE: For multi-word cities such as New York and San Diego, be sure to use an underscore between the words, NOT A SPACE, e.g. new_york.
If you want to retrieve weather forecasts for more than 10 cities, the easiest solution is to clone all of the 612 dialplan code and renumber each occurrence of 612 to 613. HINT: Some 612 entries are actually embedded in the code as well as in the extension numbers. Be sure to renumber those entries as well. Use Ctrl-W to find each 612 occurrence in the new context, and you won't inadvertently miss one. That gets you 10 more cities. Repeat as desired. Note also that you need not announce 10 cities in the voice prompt unless you want to. If you only plan to use 3 cities, then alter the initial voice prompt to only announce those cities. You do NOT need to delete the dialplan code that actually picks other cities.
Adding a Miscellaneous Destination. Access FreePBX with your browser, and choose Setup, Misc Destination. If it's not already there, add a new entry for WorldWideWeather with 612 as the Dial entry. Save your entry and then click the Red Bar to reload Asterisk.
Taking the WorldWide Weather Forecaster for a Spin. Now we should be all set. Just pick up an extension on your system and dial 612. You'll be prompted to enter a one-digit code. Punch in 5 and check out the weather forecast for good old London. Enjoy!
Housekeeping 101. Temporary files in /tmp get cleaned up by Linux housekeeping automatically. Temporary files stored elsewhere don't unless you're using Incredible PBX. The weather scripts store .wav files with your requested weather forecasts in /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/tts. So, from time to time, make a mental note to remove all of these files with a command like this:
rm -f /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/tts/tts*
Or just log into your Asterisk server as root and edit the following file: nano -w /etc/crontab. Move to the bottom of the file and insert the following code on a blank line:
01 0 * * * root rm -f /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/tts/tts* > /dev/null
This code will delete all of the TTS files in the tts folder every night. Now save your changes: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter.
Best of Nerd Vittles Link. This application also will be available on our Best of Nerd Vittles site shortly. Enjoy!
Originally published: Tuesday, April 5, 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...
Asterisk TTS: Introducing Today in History
If you're a history buff and want a convenient way to find out everything that ever happened Today in History, then this week's text to speech (TTS) application for Asterisk® should be just what you need. Pick up any phone connected to your Asterisk system and dial T-O-D-A-Y (86329 for the spelling-impaired). The script will retrieve today's historical events and today's birthdays of interest from Yahoo News and play the results back to you over the phone using either Flite or Cepstral to handle the TTS translation. To speed up the retrieval process, you can also set this up as a cron job to download the latest events each day while you're sleeping. Thereafter, when you dial T-O-D-A-Y, the results are played back for callers instantaneously.
Prerequisites. If you're using PBX in a Flash, then all of the tools you'll need are already in place. And we have a script for you that will install the application in just a few seconds. For other users, you'll need an Asterisk server with PHP5 and either Flite or Cepstral to handle the text-to-speech chores.
Overview. If you've previously installed other Nerd Vittles text to speech applications, then the drill this time around is quite similar. There's a PHP/AGI script which gets stored in /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin. In this script (nv-today.php), you can change the default Flite TTS engine to Cepstral by changing the $ttspick variable setting from 0 to 1. Then there is a snippet of dialplan code that needs to be added to the [from-internal-custom] context in extensions_custom.conf for FreePBX installations. Once you reload your Asterisk dialplan, you're ready to go.
How It Works. The PHP/AGI script only does real work once a day. It always checks to see if there is an existing /tmp/today.txt file with today's file stamp. If there is, it exits gracefully. If today's file doesn't exist or if the file's time stamp is earlier than midnight, then the script downloads the latest information for today in history and creates a text file of the data. Then either the Flite or Cepstral TTS engine is called to convert the text file into /tmp/today.wav. The dial plan code is used to answer calls to extension 86329. Then it runs the PHP/AGI script, and finally it plays back /tmp/today.wav. Note: The PHP/AGI script, if run as a cron job or from the command prompt, should never be run as the root user, but only as the asterisk user. Otherwise, the today.txt and today.wav files cannot be replaced by the script when it subsequently is run from the dialplan.
Script Installation. If you're using PBX in a Flash, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:
cd /root
wget http://bestof.nerdvittles.com/applications/today/today.pbx
chmod +x today.pbx
./today.pbx
Automatic Updates Using crontab. If you'd like to automatically generate the Today in History files each day, add the following entry to the bottom of /etc/crontab:
01 0 * * * asterisk /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/nv-today.php
Manual Installation. For those using a different Asterisk aggregation that includes PHP5, FreePBX, and Flite, add this code to /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf in the [from-internal-custom] context:
exten => 86329,1,Answer
exten => 86329,2,Wait(1)
exten => 86329,3,Set(TIMEOUT(digit)=7)
exten => 86329,4,Set(TIMEOUT(response)=10)
exten => 86329,5,Flite(Please stand bye while we retrieve: Today in History.)
exten => 86329,6,AGI(nv-today.php)
exten => 86329,7,Playback(/tmp/today)
exten => 86329,8,Wait(1)
exten => 86329,9,Hangup
Then issue the following commands from the command prompt after logging in as root:
cd /root
mkdir today
cd today
wget http://bestof.nerdvittles.com/applications/today/today.zip
unzip today.zip
rm -f today.zip
cp nv-today.php /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/nv-today.php
chmod 775 /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/nv-today.php
chown asterisk:asterisk /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/nv-today.php
asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
Running the Application. Now you're ready for a test run. Pick up any phone connected to your Asterisk system and dial T-O-D-A-Y. After a brief pause to download the data, today's events in history and today's birthdays will be played back over your phone using your favorite text to speech voice. To eliminate the pause the first time the application is run each day, simply add the crontab entry as outlined above. Enjoy!
Free DIDs While They Last. Sipgate is giving away a free U.S. DID with free incoming calls plus 200 free minutes for outbound calls. Better hurry. Here's the trunk setup for FreePBX-based systems:
Trunk name: sipgate
type=peer
username=ACCTNO
fromuser=ACCTNO
secret=ACCTPW
context=from-trunk
host=sipgate.com
fromdomain=sipgate.com
insecure=very
caninvite=no
canreinvite=no
nat=no
disallow=all
allow=ulaw&alawRegistration Strong: ACCTNO:ACCTPW@sipgate.com/YOUR-DID-NUMBER
ACCTNO is the account number assigned to your sipgate account. ACCTPW is the password for your account. YOUR-DID-NUMBER is your 10-digit DID.
Finally create an inbound route using your actual 10-digit DID and assign a destination for the inbound calls.
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.
Twitter Magic. If you haven't noticed the right margin of Nerd Vittles lately, we've added a new link to our Twitter feed. If you explore a little, you'll discover that the user interface now brings you instant access to every Twitter feed from the convenience of the Nerd Vittles desktop. Enjoy!
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...
A Baker’s Dozen Asterisk Nuggets from the Forums
Whether you’re new to the Open Source VoIP Community or an old-timer, we wonder how many folks actually miss many of the terrific Asterisk® applications that are hidden in message threads on the various Asterisk forums around the globe. In honor of St. Patty’s Day, today we want to take a stroll through the PBX in a Flash forum just to demonstrate what you may be missing by not visiting the forums or subscribing to some of the better syndication feeds.
Skype Gateway to Asterisk. If you read our recent column on integrating a Skype gateway into your Asterisk server, good for you. But, if you missed the forum dialog which followed release of the article, you missed all sorts of enhancements and system integration tips which made the Skype gateway a much better fit on many systems.
CallerID Superfecta. One of the most perplexing issues facing those that implement VoIP telephony solutions is wrestling with CallerID issues which flow from the ongoing Baby Bell phonebook monopoly. Many of you may have tried our CallerID Superfecta application which provides CallerID lookups for FreePBX-based systems using AsteriDex, Google Phonebook, AnyWho, and WhitePages. But, if you’d explored the forum additions to CallerID Superfecta, you would have uncovered an incredibly slick FreePBX installer as well as support for WhoCalled.us and Telcodata plus SugarCRM as well as numerous fixes for syntax changes on the various lookup sources.
Faxing with Asterisk. Other than CalleriD, there’s probably no issue that generates more consternation in the Asterisk community than fax integration. We reintroduced nvfax for Asterisk 1.4 recently. But, if you’d been following the forums, you’d also know that HylaFax and AvantFax now can be easily integrated into PBX in a Flash thanks to the work of Joe Roper and Tony Shiffer.
A2Billing for Asterisk. Another application that’s been difficult to get working with Asterisk has been A2Billing, a sophisticated calling card and PBX billing system. There really never has been a clear, concise cookbook for getting the software installed and properly configured. Once again, thanks to Joe and Tony, this forum thread provides a step-by-step tutorial for getting every facet of A2Billing installed and properly configured.
Asterisk Stickies. This is another promising Asterisk web application for PBX in a Flash that pops up stickies when incoming calls are received. You then can add the contact to your phonebook and also generate the XML code to update the phone directory on Grandstream and Cisco phone sets. It also supports click-to-dial from the web interface. You can keep up with the progress of this developing application in this very active message thread.
Text-to-Speech FreePBX Module. Just today a new TTS module for FreePBX was introduced which lets you generate TTS announcements for use with any FreePBX-based Asterisk system.
Overhead Paging with Asterisk 1.4. Most workplaces need some sort of overhead paging system. With the tips in this thread and any Asterisk 1.4 server, it’s incredibly easy to implement.
Streaming Music on Hold. We introduced streaming audio for Asterisk over three years ago in the Asterisk 1.2 days. A new message thread has updated that technology to support Internet radio using any Asterisk 1.4 server.
Email Alerts on Trunk Failures. For those that rely upon Asterisk systems to do real work, it’s essential to know when access to your carrier has failed so that you can make adjustments to your outbound and inbound trunks. This thread provides a simple tutorial and script to get you started.
Outbound Emails with Asterisk and SendMail. Another one of our Top 5 most perplexing problems with Asterisk is getting an outbound email capability with SendMail working reliably. Part of this is the configuration hassles with SendMail. But service providers such as Comcast have made matters worse by blocking outbound access to port 25 on most non-business accounts. Here’s a message thread that will walk you through configuring SendMail to use Gmail as your outbound SMTP relay host, and you’ll never have an email problem again on your Asterisk server.
Voicemail Notification. Unified messaging may be everyone’s dream but the reality is that it would be nice to be called on your cellphone when a new voicemail arrived at your office. The Voicemail Notification System does just that. And this thread integrates the original design into a FreePBX module.
Configuration Editor for FreePBX. FreePBX stores much of its magic in Asterisk config files. At least in PBX in a Flash, we hide some of these files to protect the integrity of your system. In addition, changes made to some of these files will get overwritten the next time FreePBX is started since it populates a lot of the information in these config files from data stored in MySQL tables. For those that want to learn more about the FreePBX, there now is a configuration file editor which will let you view and edit any FreePBX config file on your system. You’ll find a complete tutorial in the forums.
Hotel-Style Wakeup Calls. A few weeks ago we covered Tony Shiffer’s new add-on module for FreePBX that provides hotel-style wakeup calls for Asterisk systems. This code actually had been available in the forum for several months and is yet another reason to frequently check the new message threads.
Mac OS X Scripting Package. Since publication, a new link to a Treasure Trove of Goodies for Mac OS X has been posted including a link to the new Mac OS X Scripting Package and Asterisk binaries for Mac OS X from Sven Slezak at Mezzo.
Syndication Syntax. Many forums provide a syndication feed link, but many do not. For vBulletin-based forums, the basic syntax for an RSS feed looks like this:
http://fqdn.com/forum/external.php
You can refine the type of feed you want by specifying the type: RSS, RSS2, ATOM, or XML. For example, to pull down a feed from the PBX in a Flash forum, here’s the syntax for the various formats that are supported:
http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/external.php?type=RSS
http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/external.php?type=RSS2
http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/external.php?type=ATOM
http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/external.php?type=XML
You can further refine the feed by narrowing it down to a particular forum of interest. For example, to retrieve the latest threads from the PBX in a Flash Open Discussion forum, the syntax looks like this:
http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=2
Finally, here’s the list of forum ID numbers for the PBX in a Flash forum:
2 – Open Discussion
3 – Help
4 – Endpoints
5 – Trunks
6 – Providers
7 – Wish List
9 – Bug Reporting & Fixes
10 – Add-On Install Instructions
Something We Missed? There are hundreds of additional Asterisk apps hiding in the woodwork. Please share your discoveries by posting a comment and link below. Enjoy!
Want a Bootable PBX in a Flash Drive? Our Atomic Flash bootable USB flash installer for PBX in a Flash has been quite the hit. Special thanks to all of our generous contributors! Atomic Flash provides all of the goodies in the VPN in a Flash system featured last month on Nerd Vittles. You can build a complete turnkey system using almost any current generation PC with a SATA drive and this USB flash installer in less than 15 minutes!
If you’d like to put your name in the hat for a chance to win a free one delivered to your door, just post a comment with your best PBX in a Flash story.1
Be sure to include your real email address which will not be posted. The winner will be chosen by drawing an email address out of a hat (the old fashioned way!) from all of the comments posted over the next several weeks.
And it still isn’t too late to make a contribution of $50 or more to the PBX in a Flash project and get a free Atomic Flash installer delivered to your door as our special thank you gift. See this Nerd Vittles article for details.
Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors
FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.
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