So I caved and bought an iPhone to replace my broken blackberry. So I also became an app whore and downloaded a bunch of apps including the wordpress app. So here is a test post from it. I wish more apps supported landscape view
, especially these: ones that involve a lot of typing.
“Mind if I sit here as I wait for my to-go order to come out?”
“Sure, please…”, I said as I motioned toward the chair across from my table at Po-Boys Factory.
“So, where are you from?”, she asked.
Is it that transparent that I’m not from around here? Well…yes, of course it is, but the thought still struck me as a tad funny.
What ensued next surprised me, being a seventeen year citizen of Philadelphia; a friendly conversation with a complete stranger. This says something about the people around here: They are friendly. This is not exactly something I’m completely used to, living in Philadelphia all these years. From the moment I arrived in AL, I haven’t met anyone that is rude, pushy, arrogent, or even not smiling. I’m beginning to like it around here.
Anyway, back to Asterisk, as that is the primary reason for my being here.
Today, as the rest of the week will be, was an early day. Instead of the comfy 9:30am arrival time of yesterday, and in order to accommodate the amount of material that needs to be covered, training now begins at 8:30. Even though AL is a timezone behind, I did not feel like leaving my bed at all. The snooze button is your friend….numerous times over.
Finally, I managed to convince myself that I actually DO have to get up. Splashing some water on my face, I finally sprang to life. Due to the previously mentioned snooze-button-fest, I didn’t have time for breakfast (Oh, but that Waffle House down the street looks so inviting!) before leaving for the glass house that is the Digium HQ.
Ok, now to Asterisk…really this time.
Today we started to really dive into the core of *. We set up voicemails, learned how to deal with prompts and inputs, and setup some SIP and IAX (that’s pronounced eeeks, like geeks) trunks. The technology behind VoIP is actually quite wonderful, albeit somewhat flawed, especially when it comes to NAT setups.
This makes me wonder, actually, how our phone system at work functions at all. The ASA we have is pretty locked down, yet taking a linksys or Polycom phone home seems to work without needing a VPN. Either the ASA is pretty smart, or Scott opened up all UDP traffic to the Asterisk box. I’m going to have to check the access-lists when I get back, because if all UDP traffic is wide open, somebody is going to have some words.
The day was long; we didn’t finish the training until about 6:10 or so. At the end of it, though, I was not bored of sitting in a classroom, nor was I tired of Asterisk. Twelve step program, here I come.: “My name is Luke and I’m becoming an Aster-holic”. I realize that it takes a very specific kind of geek to actually enjoy writing code for phone systems. It’s unique, although C programmers, web developers, et al would also argue that their art is unique. I digress, however, arguing that programmers and developers have typically written code to serve one particular purpose, whether it be a financial application, a video game, or a web site. In turn, they would argue that I am “just” configuring a phone system, but I think it’s so much more. Asterisk doesn’t have a singular purpose; it’s not just a call router, just an IVR, simply a mechanism to send outbound calls over, or just a voicemail system. It’s all of that, and more. I don’t think that in a week, I’ll come close to realizing the full potential of it, but in just two days I have gained a completely different appreciation for it…and we haven’t even gotten to the fun stuff!
The key difference is the fun in learning. Anytime I learned a programming language, it was very systematic, and each one was for the most part similar. Phone systems are a different beast; their code isn’t like any typical programming language, although AEL helps people with programming backgrounds (like myself) ease into the role. Sure, developers can put some easter eggs in their code, but how many IDEs have a built in sound that says “weasels have eaten our phone system”, or “our phone system has been overrun by iguanas”, or a collection of monkey noises? How many of them would actually be willing to put that into production code? Rest assured that my extension at work will soon be filled with fun stuff (until some stickler VP decides to ruin my fun). I can only imagine what Allison was thinking when the Digium folks asked her to record some of these prompts, but the on-site hilarity must have been incredible. Come to think of it…who the hell actually even came up with some of the things for her to say…if I ever meet this person, I need to buy them a beer or something.
Anyway, that’s all for now. As I learn more fun Asterisk stuff, maybe I’ll post some code segments, or try to dissect our setup at work based on what I am learning here.
Read more from the Digium guys themselves at http://blogs.digium.com. Some of it may not make sense to normal people, but it’s a fun read nonetheless.
Also…I apparently have a nickname now at Digium…Luke the Blogger. I guess somebody there has an alarm setup for any WP posts that have asterisk/digium in the title :)
The beauty of having a blog with no set purpose is the ability to write about anything I want. I don’t have to confine myself to tech articles, sob stories, essays or stories from my past.
Today, I write about a little something called *.
Asterisk is an open source PBX that runs on top of UNIX-based operating systems. It is developed primarily by a company called Digium, whose headquarters are in Huntsville, Alabama.
While the state of Alabama isn’t exactly known for its technical prowess, I must say that I was more than impressed with Huntsville. It wasn’t all farms, plains, or BBQs. The buildings in Huntsville are all very modern…very “techy” looking. For example, look at the Digium headquarters…looks pretty nice, eh?
So why Asterisk? My work has been running an Asterisk phone system since January, and until recently it was maintained by one of our peons in Texas. This particular peon no longer wanted to have anything to do with the phone system because he is busy with everything else (aka, Core network, WoW and consulting for other firms [yea, I know...]). So basically, since this transition was still done under the old Regime, he got away with dumping the administration of * onto Ryan and I. Neither of us knew anything about asterisk at the time the project was thrown onto our laps. Studying peon’s config files and using some quick documentation he wrote (simple doesn’t even begin to describe it), we managed to keep the old system alive for a decently long time. The server, however, was never meant to handle the call center AND the corporate phones, and was in dire need of an upgrade. Since it was still running asterisk 1.2, we wanted to have the current 1.4 version running on the new server. Not knowing much about asterisk would have made this particular project close to impossible. Ryan was sent for training first, taking my spot because of my prior conflicting arrangements. Using his newfound knowledge, my ingenuity, and some late nights, we were able to transition (fairly) smoothly to the new server. All the problems that we had in 1.2 went away; no more echos in the phones, no more crashes of the box. We did, however, introduce a couple of new problems, but those bugs were quickly squashed.
Fast forward to today. The current asterisk implementation is running. We have queue_metrics setup and running. However, as in any great company…or any company, actually; redundancy is key. We needed a second person to have enough asterisk knowledge to be a primary for the system. That…would be me.
So here I am, sitting in a Holiday Inn in Huntsville, Alabama. Day one of training is over. Asterisk is compiled on my machine at the Digium HQ, a simple dialplan is active, and I’m full of hot wings and pulled pork from dinner.
Huntsville isn’t so bad after all. I expected much worse…but I must say two things:
1. Southern belles DO exist (Hey, blond from the plane…call me. Blond from the Digium HQ…you too).
2. Being alone here; I’m pretty fricken bored.