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.

F1 Web Challenge

Last weekend I volunteered my time for a non-profit charity website programming event. It was one of the most fun events I've been a part of and would do it again in a heartbeat. Here's the scoop on what happened.

Story

A local consulting company named Sierra Bravo decided to sponsor an event that would bring 10 teams of 8 technology people together with 10 non-profits. They made a competition out of the event pitching it as "24-hours of overnight programming". Each technology team could use any programming language and/or system they wanted to, but after the 24 hours the programming was to stop and a panel of judges would decide who created the best website. The winning team won some small prizes, but the big deal was that they won "bragging rights" as the F1 Web Challenge Winner for 2008. The event was 24 hours of programming time, but with breaks, time to setup and tear down and presentations I was awake for 36 hours straight!

Oh, also the plan was originally to have 10 teams and 10 non-profits, but because of overall demand it was decided to "take it to 11" and another team and non-profit would be added.

My team

My team was name Ruby.MN, a collection of local Twin Cities developers who met at our local Ruby Users of Minnesota (RUM) meetings. We had two designers who are not programmers and one person who specializes in Quality Assurance. We had a "dream team" - some really solid rock-stars covering all area of technology and design.

Our non-profit

Our non-profit randomly chosen was "Little Brother's Friends of Elderly" and we were designing and implementing the MN chapter. We were very excited to get a chance to work with this non-profit. They do some amazing work combating loneliness and working with elderly citizens when it comes to both mental and physical health and well being. Kathleen was the person from the organization that we worked with and she was a real trooper. She stayed with us the whole time and was one of the best clients I've ever worked with. Very open and understanding of our limitations in the timeframe we were under and she was very excited that she was working with the Ruby.MN team!

Photos from the event









My schedule for the 36 hours went as follows:

• 6:00 AM - Wake up.
  
• 6:45 AM - I arrive to the place where the event is being held (St. Paul, U of M campus). I get signed in and set up at our tables. They provided us some breakfast.
• 7:30 AM - Non-profits are matched up with team, rules are explained and coding commences.
• 12:00 PM - We stop for a break and lunch from BW3's.
• 1:00 PM - Coding resumes.
• 6:30 PM - Break for dinner from Chipolte.
• 7:00 PM - Coding resumes.
• 8:30 PM - Break for prizes to be given out (I win an HD-DVD of a National Geographic Special)
• 8:45 PM - Break for playing "Rock Band". Ruby.MN comes in 2nd place on the applause-o-meter.
  
• 10:30 PM - We had a clown show especially for the Ruby.MN team!
• 12:00 AM - Midnight snack from Dominoes.
• 3:00 AM - All are feeling very tired. A few take a break for some sleep. I continue to stay awake and work.
• 6:30 AM - Breakfast is brought in. Bagels, doughnuts.. lots of energy drinks!
• 12:00 PM - Coding stops.
• 12:30 PM - Lunch is served. Chinese buffet.
• 1:30 - Presentations are performed in front of all of the teams and the judges.
• 2:30 PM - Event is complete and the winner is crowned.
• 3:00 PM - Clean up my stuff and call Becky to be picked up.
• 3:30 PM - Becky and I go on a walk up to the store.
• 6:00 PM - I fall asleep on the couch after being awake for 36 hours.

This was an awesome experience and one in which I feel like I learned as much as shared. One of the other guys on the team I heard say something like, "This is something that more conferences should do, instead of sitting in a room and listening to one person ramble on." I completely agree. Usually when you go to technology conferences (or probably any conference I would argue), it's all about sitting in a room and letting one person present and trying to learn from them in 45-90 minute increments. Some sessions very in time, but they all are basically the same. One presenter and many attendees. How about doing a programming exercise for the conference - one where all the attendees of the conference build something? The F1 Web Challenge was a competition, but it really was a technology caucus. People who knew each other, shared ideas even across teams and all of the work and positive energy was directed towards the non-profits, as opposed negative energy towards each other.

Final Verdict

Well, after the sites were all judged and all of the points were tallied, only one winner could be awarded... I'm sorry to say however it was not Ruby.MN who was crowned the winner. To be honest, it was nearly impossible to choose one winner in this event. All of the teams created some beautiful and useful websites for their charity. Great job job everyone!

Anyway, check out the links below for the information on the event and a "live blogging" one of my teammates did during the event. Once the site we built is fully functional and live, I'll be sure and post an update here with the all of the details. Here's some simple "before" and "after" screenshots.

Before



After



Additional Links

Live Blogging By Samuel Schroeder

Official F1 Web Challenge Website

Ruby and VOIP - Continued

I completed my presentation this past weekend of Ruby and VOIP to the Twin Cities Asterisk User's Group. It went very well and I had a great time talking about Ruby and how I see Adhearsion and Telegraph being used in this emerging technology space. There were some great questions from the group and I think they had fun seeing my demonstrations as well. Plus, this time I had 2 hours to present, so I was able to get through all of my demos!

Contrasting this presentation with the one I did a few weeks ago at RUM, it was an interesting difference in groups that I presented to. Both groups are extremely technical people and include collegues that I have a great deal of respect and admiration for. It was interesting to me that there wasn't much crossover exposure of technology between the groups. Many people at the RUM group, had heard of Asterisk, but I think only 1 person raised their hand when I asked if anyone had download or run it. Likewise, the Asterisk folks had heard of Ruby, but none of them had written a script before. I had however planned for this and modified my slides slightly since the Ruby User's Group needed some background information Asterisk and the Asterisk User's Group needed some context on what Ruby is. If you are curious, you can download my modified slides here.

<SOAPBOX>
What is so interesting in VOIP as I see it coming from a software background, are the applications that we can develop and put online. Bringing the ideas of Web 2.0 to VOIP makes these frameworks a disruptive technology - and disruptive in a good way. The status quo in telecom hopefully is not going to cut in any longer and being able to write applications to interface voice and web in some ways I see as the next frontier in internet application development. Additionally, with these two isolated camps of software developers and hardware telecommunication experts, I see the market needing more people that can bridge that gap and create some really kicking applications.
</SOAPBOX>

And at the end of the day though, what I enjoy most about working with both of these frameworks is that they are FUN to use. They allow you to be innovative. Go ahead, think up a new feature or application and have at it!

Ruby and VOIP

I've been doing a some work in the VOIP area recently, using Ruby and Open Source PBXes such as Asterisk and decided it would be fun to present at the Ruby User of Minnesota ( RUM ) meeting earlier this week. My topic was on Ruby and VOIP and it seemed to have been pretty well received. I have great respect for people who are comfortable and confident speakers. I still have a lot of work to do to get the jitters out, but I do enjoy taking the time to put together presentations and share what I have learned or created with other people in the technology world. Here is a link to my presentation - 32 slides of Ruby and Asterisk goodness!

I was able to show a few of the demos that I created, but I unfortunately ran out of time and didn't get a chance to show my "Who Wants To Be A Billionaire" Application. It's an application that allows you to be a contestant of a game show using your phone. You create and manage the questions using your web browser and when people call in, the system uses text to speech to speak you the questions. It keeps track of your point total and you can call back later and resume the questions if you wish. It's pretty cool and wasn't hard to do in Ruby using Adhearsion. Besides Adhearsion another cool framework for VOIP and Ruby is Telegraph. Telegraph provides some slick integration with Rails and allows you to integrate voice response directly into your controllers.

I'll be doing this same presentation for the Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group in a few weeks so I'll need to tweak the presentation slightly as most of the slides are currently explaining Asterisk. The guys at the Asterisk Users Group will need more of a background of Ruby as they work with and understand Asterisk. Wish me luck!

As I've written in a previous post, I see the interaction between voice and the internet being more and more blurry as time goes on (in many way with VOIP it already is pretty blurry), but where they come together I see an opportunity for new products, services and small business like myself to create some really cool stuff. And all the time, having fun while doing it!

Resources:
For those that saw the demo and are curious how you might get a hosted Asterisk solution, here's some providers that I am working with who do great work. I'd be more than happy to put you in contact with the right people at either of these organizations.

OneNetUSA - http://www.onenetusa.com
Arretta Communications - http://www.aretta.com

If you have hardware and want to host it yourself, Trixbox is a fully bundled ISO that contains everything you need to be up and running in minutes. I highly recommend it if you need to get a PBX up and running quickly.

TrixBox - http://www.trixbox.org