Update procedure

1. open archive with tar xzvf vmeed-0.6.tgz
2. copy config.php from old installation into the new directory
3. replace old verison folder with new version folder

Changes

• Caller ID parsing  fix
• code re-structure
• bug fixes

As I promised, I’ve created a VMware image with a demo of the Voice Mail Feed. Now you can download it. Torrent file is at the end of this post. Here is how to use it. If you do not already have VMware Player, VMware Workstation of VMware Server, download and install VMware player

1. Download demo image
2. Start image in VMware player
3. Wait until image compleates booting
4. Login into console (user root, password password). Once you are in, you will see image IP address displayed on the screen. If there is not IP address present, check if your DHCP server is working correctly.

5. Open image IP address in a browser (it works best in Firefox)

6. Click on the link indicated in the previous figure

7. Follow instructions in the HELP frame

8. Using a sip phone, call Bob at extension 21. If you do not have a SIP phone handy, download and install it. For simplicity sake, make the phone register on the Asterisk as Alice at extension 20 and password 20.

9. Make a call to Bob and live him a voice mail message

10. Go to iTunes and update the feed

At this point you should see the message that you left for Bob in the iTunes. Here you go…

For long time I was thinking that I shold start giving back to the Open Source community.
Here it is.. I am releasing my first Open Source project.

This is really more like a concept prototype of a voice mail system that I would actually use… I have to admit, I hate using voice mail. It is so tedious to dial all those numbers remember all those passwords… RSS Voice Mail Feed Generator releives people from that. I hope for thouse of us using Asterisk PBX it would be useful enough so that other PBX vendors would follow with the same type systems.

RSS Voice Mail Feed Generator

It allows to subscribe to an RSS feed to voice mail. When new voice mail arrives my tool will make it an item in the RSS feed for your mailbox. RSS aggregators (iTunes including) would pick up that email and make it available to whatever device I use. It can download voice mail to iPod as a podcast episode for example.

It is also possible that Feedster, myWeb 2.0 and other aggregators would be able read the feed too, but I have not tested yet. I have tested it with iTunes, Opera and SharpReader so far.

Archive with the source code is here vmfeed-0.5.tgz and at the end of the post.

• Apache web server (Tested on 2.0. I think it should work in 1.3 too)
• PHP 4.3
• Asterisk PBX with voicemail
• lame mp3 encoder

Installation

Tip: Easiest setup is using Trixbox 1.1. I am going to release a pre-configured VMware image for a quick try.

All examples are for RedHat-like distros (Fedora, RHEL, CentOS …) If you use other distro, please adjust accordingly. Please be kind to share your setup instructions.

1. Place following text at the end of your Apache config file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

#———-Voice Mail Feed Generator Config Start ——
Alias /vmfeed /var/www/vmfeed
< Directory >
Options FollowSymLinks
DirectoryIndex index.php
AllowOverride Limit

< /Directory>

# ———Voice Mail Feed Generator Config End ——–
2. Restart web browser
#/etc/init.d/httpd restart

3. un-tar archive to /var/www/vmfeed

# mv vmfeed-xxx.tgz /var/www
# cd /var/www
# tar xzvf vmfeed-xxx.tgz

4. Point your browser to http://yourhost/vmfeed

5. Enter required data

6. Remove install.php
# rm /var/www/vmfeed/install.php

You should be all set now. This is what should see in the browser at ths point

Tip: With this setup you should be OK on your local network. If you need access to RSS feed on open Internet, you need to expose http port to the outside world. Talk to your network guys… and good luck…

Known problems
1. Some weirdness with Explorer 6 CSS rendering. I gave up trying to fix it. If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know

Trixbox Asterisk-based PBX virtual machine

It has a host of interesting features:

• Web Interface to controll most of the features of Asterisk PBX.
• SIP and IAX protocol stack (H.323 can be added). POTS FXS/FXO and T1/E1 are not available on VMware due to timing issues.
• Digital Receptionist automaticaly answers incoming calls and gives caller a choice of actions through IVR)
• Timers allow to set up different time patterns for call handling. It allows to direct weekend calls differently than weekday calls for example.
• Conference Bridge to set up conference calls
• Direct Inward Dial (DISA) to connect to the PBX from remote site as if you were connected localy
• Star Numbers to access star features. (like *70 to enable call waiting and *71 to desable it)
• Follow me to ring a desk phone and a cell phone when a call comes in
• Inbound Routes to direct calls depending on caller ID and interface by which a call arrives
• Outbound Routes to direct calls to different providers for Least Cost Routing for example.
• Paging and Intercom for some phones (Grandstream and Snome)
• Queues to queue-up incoming callers like in a call center
• Ring Groups to ring multiple phones upon call arival
• Call Log with various reporting capabilities to see who called whome and when
• Voice Mail system with ability to send voice mail by email as an attachments.
• Web Interface to Voice Mail
• Fax Receiving with PDF conversion. Received faxes can be sent to you by email as a PDF file
• Call Recordings to record all or some calls or fragments of calls
• Control Panel to see what is going on at a glance and controll calls with drag-and-drop
• Dynamic Configuration to add or remove functionality on the fly
• VoicePulse integration to simplyfy setup for use with a VoicePulse account if you have one.

To run this image you will need a VMware Player (or Workstation). Un-rar downloaded file and then .vmx file in VMware player. After boot loging with root password “password”. If your network has a DHCP server, image should pick-up IP address automaticaly. To check your current IP address, login to root and do

# ifconfig eth0

You should see image IP addres in the first line of the output. Read the rest of this entry »

Torrent file for Trixbox 1.0 is at the end of this post.

Asterisk@Home Open Source VoIP PBX 2.8 is the last release of this project. Coalescent Systems, the company behind A@H has started FreePBX project contributed Asterisk Management Portal to it. Now it is moving to a new product that is called TRIXBOX. New project will allow home or small office user quicly configure a PBX with one phone line on one end of spectrum and large call center with multiple Read the rest of this entry »

Current version is 2.8. Torrent file is at the end of this article.

This release uses new approach to system configuration and somewhat different user interface. Entire PBX is packaged into modules that can be enabled and disabled individually. It is major improvement, but adds a bit more complexity to configuration. User interface has changed to accommodate new approach. Once system is started first time there is no usual options pane on the left. Read the rest of this entry »

Google has introduced GoogleTalk - a messaging and voice communication platform. Is it old news? It might seem so at the first glance. But when instant messenger was integrated with Gmail and Google expressed commitment to SIP integration it seems that a new and powerful strategy is emerging. This article is an effort to understand implications of this strategy. New ideas sink in faster and deeper if there is a way to try them out quickly. Here is how to see that working For the experimental setup I decided to use

• VMware Player running on Windows. Inside WMware Player runs Linux.
• Asterisk@Home open source PBX, Wildfire Jabber Server, and Asterisk-IM Asterisk/Wildfire bridge run on Linux inside of VMware
• X-lite SIP phone and Coccinella Jabber client.

Full setup is available for download a form of a torrent Direct download will be coming shortly (once I resolve bandwith cap issues with my ISP)

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