Patrick and Fred Chat… sometimes about VoIP
I’ve said before that I’m a big (not a fat reference) fan of Michael Graves’ blog. Continuing his promotion of the wicked cool and useful†, Mr. Graves recently wrote about Schmooze Communications’ PBXact system.
It’s a GREAT read and I leave you with this: Magic Button. (read the article)
†Yes… Wicked cool and useful. If it doesn’t meet the criteria for both, it doesn’t make his blog.
Last year, the Senate passed the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 (S. 30 passed unanimously) and this year, the House moved forward on their own version. Of course, moving at the speed of government, the House passed the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2010.
Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 – Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to make it unlawful for any person in the United States, in connection with any telecommunication service or VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) service, to cause any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information (“spoofing”) with the intent to defraud or cause harm. Prohibits construing these provisions to prevent blocking caller identification or to authorize or prohibit law enforcement or U.S. intelligence agency activities.
Comcast Outage?
We’ve been hearing complaints of Comcast service issues in both Nashville and Atlanta. Although the company’s network status page shows everything to be ok, reports from users indicate a severe problem affecting home, business, and voice service.
Frank Eliason posted through his @ComcastCares twitter feed the following message at 10:30am EST:
We are aware of internet and phone trouble in and around Nashville. Engineers are on it. more info soon
At this time there is no information from Comcast regarding the nature of the problem, the impacted services, or the expected resolution. As of 12:30pm the Comcast Network Health page still states “No Known Issues.” On the other hand, Comcast users report otherwise: Read the rest of this entry »
This year marks the second decennial census since widespread use of the internet began in the 1990′s. The bulk of census activity takes place during the time when people are traditionally preparing taxes and vying for an infusion of cash from their tax return. The evil peoples of the interwebs will be out in force to take advantage of the under-informed.
Keep these simple rules in mind:
Read the rest of this entry »
When my little girl went from being a benign, unmoving lump of sleeping, drooling baby to a terroristic unplugging, biting, chewing, eating, swallowing, gagging, breaking, pulling, tugging beast of a toddler, my home decor changed. When we moved into our excessive 4 bed / 2.5 bath home in 2007, we had dreams. We had a guest room, and a Disney room, and my home office taking up about 25% of the under A/C space. When the beast began terrorizing our home, we retreated into a fallback position and isolated her to the safest room in the house, my former office. I was relegated to Read the rest of this entry »
Dan York wrote a fantastic post today over at Disruptive Technology…
Humorous video – in how many movies is the “No Signal” theme over-used?
Its Friday, so here’s a bit of humor… I admit that I had not really paid attention to how incredibly over-used the “my cellphone has no signal” theme has been in recent movies until I saw this video. Keep watching, though, because after the “no signal” theme, it does go into other amusingly over-used themes like dropping mobile phones in water, ripping them apart, burning them, etc…
Kudos to someone named Rich Juzwiak for apparently editing together pieces of 66 movies!Posted from: http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2009/09/humorous-video—in-how-many-movies-is-the-no-signal-theme-over-used.html
Note: You can play or download the MP3 audio of the “Telemarketer Torture” calls towards the end of the article.
When I first started working with VoIP, I began to hate telephony, and any and all things telephone related. This bothered me on many levels. You see, as a kid, I loved telephones. Growing up in the “big city,” pay phones seemed to be on every corner. Family stories talk about walking several blocks extra, just to avoid me seeing and wanting to play with a phone. But, as usual, I digress…
When I worked with an unnamed switch (let’s just say it rhymed with Broadmoft), I hated working with VoIP. I knew there had to be a better way and started playing with Asterisk. Soon, my memories of playing with phones started coming back and my love rekindled. Now, I look forward to working with phone systems, only because I truly feel that the use of a phone can only be limited by your imagination. And with companies like Twilio, Adhearsion, and Digium, the community of telephone developers seems only to grow.
With that long winded introduction, let’s discuss today’s topic — telemarketer torture. Read the rest of this entry »
Residential VoIP - No Operators
Some say the media sensationalizes our economic woes for their personal gain. Others say the media accurately portrays the extreme financial burdens we find ourselves facing. And some people say, “Hey. I don’t care about anything, I always have and always will try to save money.” With today’s world becoming increasingly digital, VoIP (digital telephone) seems like a naturally good idea.
Clearly, we at VoIP Tech Chat advocate VoIP. We love it. We love it so much, we made a website called VoIP Tech Chat. And we actually now and then have chats and write articles on VoIP (ok, that last part was a little sarcastically since both Patrick and Fred seem to have been too busy to actually talk or write lately… but anyway…).
Read the rest of this entry »
Cory Andrews posted a great “tech tip” on the VoIP Insider blog detailing how to convert a Cisco SCCP phone to SIP.
Whether you’re a Cisco fan that finally realizes Asterisk can provide better PBX services (at a lower cost) or just someone who happens to have a bunch of Cisco Skinny VoIP telephones laying around, converting the firmware to SIP can make the Cisco phone compatible with many VoIP systems.
But, don’t take my word for it… go to the VoIP Insider and read Cory’s tech tip. Give it a shot and tell us what you think.
John Todd (with Digium) sent a great email on SIP Security. Although written towards the Asterisk audience, this email provides a very good guideline towards increasing your VoIP SIP Security. It’s a must read and reprinted here for your easy viewing.
In case any of you were wondering why there has been a fairly notable upswing in the attacks happening on SIP endpoints, the answer is “script kiddies.” In the last few months, a number of new tools have made it easy for knuckle-draggers to attack and defraud SIP endpoints, Asterisk-based systems included. There are easily-available tools that scan networks looking for SIP hosts, and then scan hosts looking for valid extensions, and then scan valid extensions looking for passwords. You can take steps, NOW, to eliminate many of these problems. I think the community is interested in coming up with an integrated Asterisk-based solution that is much wider in scope for dynamic protection (community-shared blacklists is the current thinking) but that doesn’t mean you should wait for some new tool to defend your systems. You can IMMEDIATELY take fairly common-sense measures to protect your Asterisk server from the bulk of the scans and attacks that are on the increase. The methods and tools for protection already exists – just apply them, and you’ll be able to sleep more soundly at night.
Seven Easy Steps to Better SIP Security on Asterisk: Read the rest of this entry »
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