Category: technnology

Beyond the dialtone – PBX user experience revisited

When most of us think about PBX systems, we usually associate these with cumbersome usage, confusing dialing codes and in most cases – a PBX system is automatically associated with the annoying task of transferring a call from one handset to another. Lately, I’ve been thinking deeply about how people use PBX systems, is this really the only way to use a PBX system? is there something else to the mix? can we really enrich one of the oldest operational paradigms in the world? – and for that matter, can the public be re-educated to assimilate a new breed of PBX systems or services?

Digium TE205P vs. OpenVox D210P

If there is one thing I like doing is testing hardware, specifically, testing new hardware that is related to Asterisk. I was more than pleased when OpenVox had approached me, asking to review one of their products – specifically after I once announced that I really dislike cheap clone cards. So, I got OpenVox’s D210P card, which is a fairly similar clone to the TE205/TE210 of Digium, and I decided to take a it for a test drive.

Chinese Domain Scam Alert!

Over the years I’ve seen many scams running on the net. Ranging from the ever annoying chain mails to the ever popular Nigerian Sting – Internet fraud is all around us. Lately, I’ve been hit by a new type of fraud attack, a domain registration fraud attack – mainly located in China and Hong-Kong.

Winsows? Salsa? CheckPoint watching too much Seinfeld

Recently, I had to install the CheckPoint SecureClient on my notebook, which is currently running Windows 7 (ok, a linux guys running Windows 7 is something completely different, but let’s talk about that later). In any case, I’ve gone into the CheckPoint website, looking for SecureClient, and got a really funny Seinfeld flash-back:

I’m not rude, I’m eccentric

Today I got the chance to speak at a Polycom half-day convention, mainly to speak about Asterisk and HDvoice. Now, putting aside the part about HDvoice (I’m getting a post about that on its own), I gotten to the point where I believe that I’m currently perceived as being an eccentric.

A baby, a house and a full time job

For those of you who know personally, you probably already know that last month I became a father. I guess the transition is something that I was more or less ready for, at least on the technical terms of the transition.

Asterisk’s New Friend in Israel – Cellcom

Since early 2006, an ever increasing competition between the local PTT carriers in Israel, had introduced an unlikely friend to the Asterisk community in Israel. While Cellcom, one of Israel’s largest cellular carriers, isn’t closely associated with the PSTN market – it’s entrance to the local PTT market, especially into the E1 PRI market, had introcuded the most unlikely friend to Asterisk.

Asterisk and Amazon EC2 – Amoocon Presentation

I recently gave a presentation at the Amoocon convention, held in Rostock, Germany – about Asterisk and Amazon EC2. Below is a medium quality video of that presentation: or you may download it here: Amazon EC2 and Asterisk video files

Asterisk Fax, Cheap VoIP Providers, Free Calls and more …

As I recently explained to a good friend of mine, the essence of Jewish holidays is, more or less, the ever growing consumption of food – due to our great fortune with people trying to kill us and not being able to do so. Putting that aside, now a days, the essence of Jewish holidays, at least in Israel, is to basically sit at home and do nothing.