[BLUG] BLUG MEETING, Tues. June 10, 7pm, Yogi's

All-

The next BLUG meeting will be held Tuesday, June 10th at 7:00pm. This
month is another "informal" meet-n-greet.

I think I'll call Yogi's again, as that seemed to work last time, and
they have beer (yet let our under-21 friends join in the fun). Yogi's
Bar & Grill is at the corner of 10th St and Indiana Ave. We'll try to
sit near the front.

Who's in?

Cooley

--
Dave Cooley
dcooley@kiva.net

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[BLUG] Spiceworks: Anyone Interested?

Hello All:
I'm thinking of using Spiceworks for our school's support ticketing
system/network inventory. It seems pretty straightforward and
intuitive once it is set up correctly. However, my efforts thus far
have not yielded the results I had hoped. I suspect this is mostly
due to my lack of networking experience.

My question is this: Anyone interested in travelling to Columbus, IN,
to help me configure this? This is a paying gig. I can offer more
details - folks can email me off list if they wish.

If this is inappropriate use of this mailing list, I apologize in
advance! (Please let me know if it is.)

Thanks - I enjoy reading the correspondence on this list.
Matt
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Re: [BLUG] Asterisk/VoIP presentation

Something to check out that I found out about. The FWDout project is
similar to what you were suggesting. But the liability is huge. Now
that I think about it, I wouldn't want to allow anyone to make random
calls from my phone. If they harrass someone, I'd be responsible and it
would probably be difficult to track them down.

http://www.fwdout.com/web/

Mark

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 11:35:23AM GMT, ben lipkowitz [fenn@sdf.lonestar.org] said the following:
> On Wed, 28 May 2008, Mark Krenz wrote:
>
> >But I think you mean making a SIP connection from another city to your
> >asterisk server and then to eliminate the toll there. Both are possible
> >and I'll explain how all that works at the presentation.
>
> yes and also calling locally to initiate an SIP call
>
> >>lots of people have cellphones but for some reason or another are required
> >>to have a land line, which then goes unused.
> >
> > I'm curious about this. Why would you need to have a landline? Do
> >certain businesses require it now or something? Back in 1999, I moved
> >into an apartment and tried going without a landline and just using my
> >cellphone and wireless internet. I don't remember running into any
> >trouble like needing a landline.
>
> For me personally (although I dont have a cellphone either) SBC requires
> you to have plain telephone service in order to provide DSL service, and
> it's been working well so I dont want to switch to cable. Some other
> reasons I've seen: home security systems that use a modem, and the fact
> that cellphones are not reliable in an emergency.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BLUG mailing list
> BLUG@linuxfan.com
> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
>

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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Re: [BLUG] Asterisk/VoIP presentation

On Wed, 28 May 2008, Mark Krenz wrote:

> But I think you mean making a SIP connection from another city to your
> asterisk server and then to eliminate the toll there. Both are possible
> and I'll explain how all that works at the presentation.

yes and also calling locally to initiate an SIP call

>> lots of people have cellphones but for some reason or another are required
>> to have a land line, which then goes unused.
>
> I'm curious about this. Why would you need to have a landline? Do
> certain businesses require it now or something? Back in 1999, I moved
> into an apartment and tried going without a landline and just using my
> cellphone and wireless internet. I don't remember running into any
> trouble like needing a landline.

For me personally (although I dont have a cellphone either) SBC requires
you to have plain telephone service in order to provide DSL service, and
it's been working well so I dont want to switch to cable. Some other
reasons I've seen: home security systems that use a modem, and the fact
that cellphones are not reliable in an emergency.

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Re: [BLUG] Asterisk/VoIP presentation

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 07:39:46AM GMT, ben lipkowitz [fenn@sdf.lonestar.org] said the following:
>
> the idea was to plug the phone line into a modem card and route the audio
> through an SIP call, thus allowing anyone to call our house and use the
> free long distance.

Well, I hope you don't mean call your house and then make a long
distance call using your phone line so that you pay the toll. I'll
explain how to configure a dialplan to avoid that and that's probably
the first thing everyone needs to learn before running an Asterisk
server. But I think you mean making a SIP connection from another city
to your asterisk server and then to eliminate the toll there. Both are
possible and I'll explain how all that works at the presentation.

> lots of people have cellphones but for some reason or another are required
> to have a land line, which then goes unused.

I'm curious about this. Why would you need to have a landline? Do
certain businesses require it now or something? Back in 1999, I moved
into an apartment and tried going without a landline and just using my
cellphone and wireless internet. I don't remember running into any
trouble like needing a landline.

> this unused telephone
> infrastructure could be put to work as a community resource to provide an
> 'internet phone gateway' for local POTS telephones, or in reverse to allow
> skype/SIP calls to local phones. the software to do this could be
> distributed for free on a custom linux live-CD, only requirements being an
> internet connection and an unused computer with a modem.

That's an interesting idea. One thing that you can do (but I haven't
done yet) is connect Asterisk servers together using the IAX protocol.
Its usually used for redundancy in the same office, but I wonder if its
possible to pool POTS lines together from different locations
transparently. I guess you could theoretically make your own PSTN,
which is basically what the phone companies connect to each other over.
But you'd have to be willing to give up use of your phone line and some
internet bandwidth.

> i'm sure there are a couple terms of service being violated somewhere.

I don't think so, but it depends on the phone company I guess.

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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Re: [BLUG] Asterisk/VoIP presentation

On Tue, 27 May 2008, Mark Krenz wrote:

> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 01:22:13AM GMT, ben lipkowitz [fenn@sdf.lonestar.org] said the following:
>> i was interested in asterisk for making an answering machine that would
>> record to sound files in your home folder, but the configuration docs
>> always made my eyes glaze over.. also wanted to try a SIP-to-POTS bridge.
>
> Great. I can definately show how that's done. What do you mean
> however by a SIP-to-POTS bridge? Do you mean using an FXO/FXS card to
> hook up an Asterisk server to a POTS line or do you mean something more
> specific?

the idea was to plug the phone line into a modem card and route the audio
through an SIP call, thus allowing anyone to call our house and use the
free long distance.

lots of people have cellphones but for some reason or another are required
to have a land line, which then goes unused. this unused telephone
infrastructure could be put to work as a community resource to provide an
'internet phone gateway' for local POTS telephones, or in reverse to allow
skype/SIP calls to local phones. the software to do this could be
distributed for free on a custom linux live-CD, only requirements being an
internet connection and an unused computer with a modem.

combine this with an ad-hoc rooftop mesh wifi net and you have ...
something. info-anarchy!

i'm sure there are a couple terms of service being violated somewhere.

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Re: [BLUG] Asterisk/VoIP presentation

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 01:22:13AM GMT, ben lipkowitz [fenn@sdf.lonestar.org] said the following:
> i was interested in asterisk for making an answering machine that would
> record to sound files in your home folder, but the configuration docs
> always made my eyes glaze over.. also wanted to try a SIP-to-POTS bridge.

Great. I can definately show how that's done. What do you mean
however by a SIP-to-POTS bridge? Do you mean using an FXO/FXS card to
hook up an Asterisk server to a POTS line or do you mean something more
specific?

Mark

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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