Passing values back to the dial plan

More Asterisk scripting basics: I've added notes to the wiki for passing value(s) back to the dial plan.

Goolag redo

Okay, so I got the description of Goolag wrong. Mostly, it's my fault for not realizing that I'm supposed to download a binary executable from a known hacker site (yeah, that's a smart move). That from a page where the main focus is a search bar and the download link is formatted so that it appears as a "feature" on a page titled "Goolaq".

A little bit of design knowledge (instead of "adapting" formats) and visitors might not make the incorrect assumption. Mixing what is supposed to be a legitimate link for a download into what is supposed to be a parody leads to confusion such as this. It's like your pastor telling a dirty joke during a sermon. At best, it leaves people scratching their heads.

Again, my apologies for the confusion, especially to Corey Nachreiner.

To the guy calling himself "ass", I won't "moderate your comment up". You've yet to say anything constructive. I've posted this retraction instead. Please realize that I've never claimed to be a "l33t h4x0r" like you. In any case, from this humble n00b, thank you for your input!

Unrequested assistance

Note to self: If just before that pre-dinner nap, your spouse says, "I couldn't make out how my computer is hooked to your network," and later that evening your brand new IP phone consistently resets after two seconds of connect time, complaining about a lack of IP address, it should set off alarm bells in your head!

Note to everyone else: The Grandstream Budgetone 102 will do that if _SOMEONE_ (*ahem*) plugs the cable into the "PC" port vice the "LAN" port.

I refuse to ask how she thought that her computer was plugged into the phone (okay, maybe the _do_ both have blue cables) but I refuse to feel guilty that it took 15+ minutes to find that (yeah, I'm taking fire from that). I'll probably have to tell the story about taking her shopping for a laptop, and getting a red one, at the next social function, just to get even. (heh)

IMAP Voicemail

I've added notes for adding IMAP-based voicemail for Asterisk to the wiki.

MySQL password reset

Inherit a box where you don't know the root-level password for MySQL? Or just plain forgot it? I've added notes for resetting the root password to the wiki.

Putting a name to it

Ah! I finally have a name to one of my vices: cheesy wirefu. I blame the five years that I lived in Hawaii, watching what could only be described as a feudal Japanese soap opera (reading subtitles while following the action becomes second nature) and a number of really bad B movies from the clearance bin. (This was well before the Mystery Science Theater experiments.)

I learned the term "wirefu" from one of Zach Selwyn's vidcasts. Thanks guys!

Experimental Network Sessions - Episode 5

Notes for tonights conference call can be found here (in ODP format) and here (in PDF format). Wiki-fied notes are here.

It's a very easy technique so I don't expect the instruction part to last long. I'll hang out on the channel if anyone wants to chat.

Realtime default extensions

Finally got a little bit of time to test whether or not the default extension ("s") could be used in real time. From what I can tell it actually works, at least in 1.4.16.2. I'll test the other two ("t" and "i") later.

Repair: Realtime extensions with MySQL

Went back to try the install from scratch. Found a few bugs (extra quotes actually) in the MySQL script to create the extensions database. Fixed version here.

Home-grown conference manager repair

For anyone using my home-grown conference manager, otherwise known as a kludge, I've figured out what was causing the dial to drop to the default "s" extension: In the "callthis.php" script, in the line starting with "asterisk_command", change "Exten: Local/201" so that it reads "Exten: 201".

For some reason, the call manager only likes channel names in the Channel variable. It doesn't like them in the Extension variable when setting up calls.

In hindsight, it's kinda obvious, no?

Realtime extensions with MySQL

After a sucking up available free time after work for a few days, I finally have realtime extensions up and running on Asterisk and MySQL. My notes for realtime extensions are in the wiki. Now to play with it.

TWUUG swag?

One of the alternate uses for the Tidewater Unix Users Group is you can often find people to take your "treasures" off of your hands. Case in point: this week, the following appeared at the far end of the table...

It's a Meridian CDNET 914 SCSI-based CD library. Good for a couple dreams but you (or at least me) don't want to be caught by your spouse, sneaking this thing in the door. (Heh) That and there's something that's just down-right creepy about having a floppy drive in the back.
Note to self: test to see if the hardware moratorium has been lifted.

PSGw

PSGw is a Skype-to-SIP and SIP-to-Skype gateway. I spent a little time this morning, setting it up on a Linux box and getting it to talk to Asterisk. While the configuration is pretty straight-forward, I did have to guess at one thing (declaring context) that wasn't in the provided notes.

Overall, the calls to/from Skype are of marginal quality. They're intelligable but there's enough jitter in them to be highly annoying.

I've put my PSGw notes in the wiki if anyone else wants to try it out.