IP Phone Install

Yesterday at our local Twin Cities Asterisk User's Group ( TCAUG.net ) we had the opportunity to do a real world, hands on, IP phone install at the client's business of the meeting organizer. What a great experience! The client is deploying 160, Polycom Soundpoint 301's at a newly acquired space within the same building.

In most cases, setting up an IP phone network is very straight forward. You can with DHCP and the default VLAN setting have the telephones actually download their configuration files from a local TFTP server. However, there was a bug in the boot-rom with these phones, so we had to do some manual configuration to get the system updated. The steps we took were.

• Unpackage the IP phone
• Boot the phone and select a static IP
• Tell the phone the TFTP server to use.
• Tell the phone the VLAN to use.
• Reboot the phone and allow it to update itself.
• Reboot the phone and reset it to DHCP.
• Reboot the phone one final time and make sure it was assigned an IP correctly.
  

I actually had the opportunity over the past couple of day to help Eric do some of the line patching and installation of a plugs at the employee workstations. It was an awesome experience to get out in the field and work hands on with some new cutting edge IP phone technology. This install is using Asterisk on a 10 gigabit network. After we got the phone registered, our group played around with paging around 50 phone at the same time to see what sort of response from the Asterisk server. It turns out it didn't even break a sweat! Asterisk can scale very well in small to medium sized businesses. I'm looking forward to continuing to help Eric when I can with future projects, just to continue and round out my VOIP technology experience. I continue to see areas and new ideas of places where software can be used in these new IP based systems, but getting the chance to work, hands on with the phone and running hte lines is a lot of fun and something I have having a great time learning and working in.

Join Me At TCLUG

I'm bad at getting these messages out ahead of time, but wanted to let people know that I'll be presenting tonight, alongside two friends of mine, Jason and Eric, at the Twin Cities Linux User's Group (TCLUG). We'll be talking about Asterisk and the history/future of telephony using VOIP.
I'll be trying to hold my own in the conversation, since those guys are wizards when it comes to this VOIP stuff and deal with Asterisk everyday and run the Twin Cities Asterisk User's Group. I'll be talking more about the software integration that is possible with Asterisk using Adhearsion and Telegraph. Hopefully we'll have a good turn out. I really enjoy talking about VOIP and telecommunications and I see a great potential for all sorts of both client side and server side applications.

Here more information on the event and a link to the meeting page. Here's all the details.

When:
Wednesday, April 9, 2008, 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Where:
University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus, EE/CSci Building , Room: 3-115 (Room change!!) 200 Union St SE, Minneapolis 55455

Who:
Justin Grammens : Localtone Interactive, LLC
Localtone Interactive is a Minneapolis, MN based internet application development company focusing on using Ruby on Rails, Java, Linux and Open Source technologies to provide business solutions to our clients.

Jason Brockman : OneNet USA
OneNet USA is a Communications Solutions Provider offering integrated network solutions for voice, data, IP, and video to a diverse clientele

Eric Osterberg : Sound Choice Communications, LLC
Founded in May of 2001, Sound Choice Communications offers competitive telecommunications services in Minnesota including highspeed DSL, local VoIP dialtone, private data circuits, and VoIP long distance service.

Hope you can join us!

Emerging Digiterati

I just got back from presenting Localtone Radio at Emerging Digerati earlier this morning. It was held at the Wiesmann Art Museum on the University of Minnesota Campus. What an awesome event! I actually had never heard of this event, but my business partner Phil I think got the skinny on this event from our good friend Garrick.

Emerging Digerati is basically a showcase of emerging technology related to art - and I use art in the broad sense of the term. From everything related to video, audio, installation, design, etc. I talked with the people who have been running this event for the past 7 years and learned a little about the mission and goals of the event. This year was the first time that they tried doing a full week long event with presentations. I was blown away to see all of the different presentations people gave and all of the ways technology is emerging. A few take-aways that I do see in emerging technology were:

• Trusted Friends - Some people call this social networking, but those are kind of loaded words, since they encompass a lot of concepts. Basically, the thought that there is so much content out on the internet, that people only have time to visit sites and keep on things that are recommended by their trusted friends. It's not so much to just network with people, but to use their suggestions in content you consume. I have some thoughts about how to add these concepts into Localtone Radio.
  
• Interactivity - The days of the boring static website I would predict will be coming to a close. With Flash and technologies such as Ajax/Javascript, more desktop type interfaces are going to be demanded in the browser.
• Video - We all know video is popular, but seeing a number of the presentations today solidifies this point and more sites will incorporate some form of video or pulling in video from other services in the future.
  
• RSS Feeds - With the sharing of more information on the web, RSS feeds are becoming more well known as a way to distribute content to people. I was surprised at the knowledge and ideas people had related to sharing and using RSS feeds. RSS is something that I had kind of viewed as being beyond many consumers and was not a big deal in Localtone Radio. After today however, I'll be looking at ways to add them.
• Passion - As with all artists, it's the passion of what you are working on that drives you. In all of the presentations today, you could tell that these were projects and technology that people truly felt passionate about. People often work on these projects for little or no money and instead are not driven by dollars, but by pure motivation.

I want to say a big thank you to Aaron and Anne from the Institute for New Media Studies the opportunity to be a part of this event. I'm looking forward to next year, if not to present, just to show up and take in what everyone else is up to. It was a great way to spend half a day (I unfortunately couldn't stay the whole time due to other meetings) and I'll be sure and be there next year.

Turn Off The Lights

This past Saturday evening, Becky and I participated in Earth Hour. If you have not heard of this event, it's where everyone is encouraged to turn off all of the lights in their house for 1 hour, between 8 and 9pm their local time. A number of large companies here in Minneapolis turned off the lights in their buildings in observance of the event. I also noticed a number of homes in my neighborhood that went dark during this time as well.

Besides cutting down on energy consumption, I found it to be a very relaxing time and a good way to spend quality time with the person I love. Becky and I lit candles and sat and talked in the kitchen of our house. It was great way to force us to get out of the daily grind and never ending tasks and just spend time together. There is a wide range on what people believe in global warming, but I'd like to suggest people try and do this more often, both for the sake of the helping environment, but also as a way to spend quality time with your family.

Earth Hour probably never intended to have this consequence, but try turning off the t.v. and the lights for even 15 minutes every week and talk with each other more often. Life goes by far too fast and those days of sitting at home and using candles to read a story or talk about what is going on in each other's lives will be gone before you know it. Just something to think about.