A2Billing+Apache vs. A2Billing+Lighttpd

Ok, it goes without saying: “A2Billing is one of the most complete Calling Card systems in the Asterisk market today.” – on the other hand, it is also true that: “A2Billing is one of the most complex and convoluted pieces of code ever written!”. The combination of the above makes for a fairly combustible mixture, […]

Zip up, Slim down, let the heads roll…

Like most of the world, I’ve been following the recent market turmoil with a great burden on my shoulder. When you think about it, I’m not a stock broker, nor am I a multi-billionaire that has his funds invested in various stocks and bonds, that a single 0.1% shift in the NASDAQ translates to millions […]

We’re melting, we’re melting…

I’m not much of an economist. I understand income and expenses, I understand more or less how the stock market works from time to time, but I’m no economist. I’ve been in the hi-tech industry since early 1997, which means, that I’ve seen this world being elevated to the level of godly hood, buried alive […]

Tux Violation – Calling all Tuxes

OK, saying that the Tux pengiun is cute and fuzzy, and saying that it is one of the cutest mascots in the world is one thing. But using it as the logo of a company that manufactures “Fever Pads”, now that’s something completely different. The following image was taken using my cell phone, when I […]

I’ve been out of the cell world for a while…

Most of the readers of this blog know me for my work with Asterisk, the Open Source PBX. However, prior to working with Asterisk, I was heavily involved in the Kannel Open Source WAP/SMS gateway project. That was during a time I spent (almost 6 years), at a mobile content management and delivery company called […]

TrixBox shows its support (or lack of it)

Well, it’s quite common to get a flame here and there on any Internet technical maling list, but the following really caught my eye. Here’s an extract from the TrixBox forum: ———————- CUT HERE ———————- Subject: SS7 on Sangoma a101D shoieb_arshad Submitted by shoieb_arshad on Sat, 09/20/2008 – 12:16am. hello i have a two running […]

Dialers – Myth or Truth?

Over the past 12 months, I’ve been heavily involved in the development of high-speed dialers. While many companies published a prolific number of automatic dialers (power, predictive, broadcast) – none of these companies ever announced there top speed dialing capability. An so I ask myself: “What is the reason not to release these numbers publicly?” […]

I’m no web designer – I’m a developer

Lets put it this way: I am no web developer, nor was I ever, nor will I ever be. While I do enjoy playing around with various web designs and web technologies, I’m no web developer. Think about it, this blog is based upon the WordPress system, which means, that while I could easily build […]

Working on a new book ….

As most of you reading this blog, you must know that I’ve published an AsteriskNOW book early this year. I’m happy to say that I’ve received numerous emails since the publication of the book, all asking various questions about Asterisk in general and AsteriskNOW in particular. Most of the questions that I received were related […]

A little security experiment…

Back in the year 1999, long before I started my Asterisk days, I spent most of my time as a security consultant and cyber forensics expert. I remember that in those days, most of the hacks were script kiddies exploiting some Windows IIS well known hole, and you would usually get the “Hacked by Chinese” […]