Linux

Paragon hipi dual-mode GSM phone

July 23, 2006

Paragon Wireless released the world first commercial GSM/VoWLAN dual-mode smart phone, hipi, in March 2006 and was my pick to be a winner in this years' TMC Labs Innovation Awards. With a tri-band GSM/GPRS (Class 10) radio and an IEEE 802.11b WLAN chipset, hipi enables users to enjoy broadband multimedia services at WLAN covered homes, offices, hot spots/zones as well as reliable GSM/GPRS service anytime anywhere. Featuring a 2.4 inch TFT touch screen, QVGA, with 260k Colors, the hipi also supports STUN-based NAT traversal, the SIP standard, as well as G.711, G.729a/b, and G.723 codecs. It even has some gadgety-bling via it's built-in MP3 player and a QVGA/QCIF camera.

Posted in Linux, Microsoft, Mobile Phones, VoIP, Wireless

Inc.com Names Mark Spencer to 30 Under 30: America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs

July 10, 2006

Tom Keating & Asterisk-guru & Digum President Mark Spencer

Digium, creator of Asterisk and pioneer of open source telephony, today announced that Mark Spencer, president of Digium, has been named to Inc.com's "30 Under 30: America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs".

Inc. selected the top 30 entrepreneurs based on their proven ability to run a successful company, manage a company with a novel approach, create a successful or innovative product, and/or otherwise demonstrate their innovative idea in the world of entrepreneurship. Inc.'s article can be found at www.inc.com/30under30.

Posted in Asterisk, Linux

Skype for Linux 1.3 beta news

June 28, 2006

There is a new release of Skype for Linux v1.3 (in beta) that was announced today. It's been awhile since Skype released a new version for the Linux operating system (last year in fact). One of the highlighted features includes support for the ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) sound system, which Jaanus points out is one of the most requested features by the Linux community. X11 API was added, and the "latest-greatest" emoticons as well as flags are supported in this release. Mood messages were also added. It doesn't appear the Linux Skype client supports videoconferencing still. Bummer.

Posted in Linux, Skype

Trixbox 1.0 replaces Asterisk@Home

June 7, 2006

Apparently, development on Asterisk@Home, the "turnkey" Asterisk solution with many third-party add-ons pre-installed has ended. However, the developers have created a new product called Trixbox. Just like Asterisk@Home, Trixbox is a complete Asterisk PBX including, a Linux OS, Asterisk PBX software, a Web GUI, and many other useful add-ons. As with Asterisk@Home, Trixbox can be quickly installed in less than an hour.

Besides being reminded of that wacky Trix rabbit character, I'd be curious why the need for the name change, especially since Trixbox is based on the same exact source code as Asterisk@Home. I liked the Asterisk@Home name - it gave the product a connotation of being "easy" to use and install.

Posted in Asterisk, Linux

Asterisk Business Edition B.1 Released

June 5, 2006

Digium today announced a major upgrade of its Asterisk Business Edition, the professional-grade version of Asterisk. Called Asterisk Business Edition B.1, the upgraded release includes enhanced security and scalability provided by Ranch Network's Asterisk security code, speech recognition capabilities through the LumenVox Speech Engine, text-to-speech applications through the Cepstral Text-to-Speech System and a customized Linux distribution to simplify installation. Asterisk Business Edition B.1 will also feature built-in support for Intel Dialogic Products and Aculab Prosody X cards.

Posted in Asterisk, Linux

Fedora Core 5 is out

March 24, 2006

I had no idea Fedora Core 5 was out. I downloaded Fedora Core 5 test2 like 3 weeks ago and played around with the beta. Was thinking about living dangerously and using the beta version for the migration of TMC's current MovableType installation (Windows). Well, lo and behold I'm happily surfing the web when I find this post from 4 days ago announcing Fedore Core 5 is out.

Posted in Linux

GDS Voice Conferencing Solution for Asterisk

March 21, 2006

Today GDS released GDS Voice Conferencing Solution for the Asterisk platform. GDS Voice Conferencing is a feature-rich enterprise voice conferencing solution built on top of native Asterisk MeetMe application. Amazing how many third-party companies are now developing applications for Asterisk. Indeed, within the VoIP industry we have the Skype Economy, and now we can add the "Asterisk Economy".

Here is a short overview:

Multiple conference types (scheduled, recurrence, reservation-less)
Intuitive web interface for conference management, personal contact management, user management and system administration
Manage conference attributes like announce user leave/join, wait for marked user and associate contacts and its roles within the conference (listen only, admin mode etc.)
Monitor live conferences (mute/un-mute participant, kick out participant, lock conference, view on line participants and its attributes etc.)
Integrated personal contact management for simple invitation and notification
Import existing contacts
User roles based privileges
Port resources management (TDM and VoIP)
Recurrence and conflict conferences management
Automatic email notifications and reminders
API for integration with third party applications and more

Posted in Asterisk, Linux

CompUSA to carry Xandros Linux PCs

March 14, 2006

CompUSA and Xandros announced a partnership today. Xandros, a provider of easy-to-use Linux alternatives to Windows, announced today that the retail giant, CompUSA, is now selling the Xandros Desktop product in all of its stores, nationwide. The Xandros product line offers home and business users a complete, stable, and secure alternative to costly Windows systems. I've been thinking about trying Xandros myself on my home lab setup.

Posted in Linux

Cisco Unified Communications Changes Everything?

March 5, 2006

Cisco at 12am March 6th will launch their new Unified Communications System (www.cisco.com/go/unified) aimed at streamlining business processes, and helping to drive productivity. Unified Communications (UC) will feature new presence, desktop tools, mobile integration and network intelligence to improve business agility and customer interaction, but just as importantly as I will indicate later, Cisco is fully embracing the SIP standard on their desktop phones. I interviewed Cisco last week and they told me that I was the first journalist or analyst to have a "first look" at this major announcement.

Cisco IP phone & the new IP Communicator softclient

Perhaps I misread the tone of the Cisco representatives during my call, but they initially seemed to downplay the significance of Cisco's embracing of SIP in favor of focusing on the entire Unified Communications platform. But in my opinion, Cisco embracing SIP is just as big news as their Unified Communications system, but more on that later.

Essentially, Cisco Systems, unveiled the Cisco Unified Communications system, which is a new suite of voice, data and video products and applications specifically designed to help organizations of all sizes to communicate more effectively.

Posted in Avaya, Linux, Reviews, VoIP

Asterikast video podcasts to teach you Asterisk

February 21, 2006

Asterikast is a podcast that teaches and explains about the VoIP-capable Asterisk PBX by Digium. According to Asterikast, "We also plan on having videos that can help step you through the process of setting up your very own Asterisk PBX."

They already have two episodes available for download. Episode I, "the very first episode of Asterikast" they cover how to compile Asterisk and setup one SIP phone. Episode II has much higher quality video, audio and on-screen footage.

Posted in Asterisk, Linux

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