I got to see the new Digium IP Phones up close - sort of. I ran into Digium's Steve Sokol in their ITEXPO booth and proceeded to ask Steve about these new IP phones. I asked him if they were...
Today, at ITEXPO, the premiere communications event, Digium launched a line of IP phones that work in conjunction with their Asterisk and Switchvox solutions. This truly could be a gamechanger, since Asterisk is a popular IP-PBX solution that popular 3rd...
I heard the Asterisk 1-2-3 session, the first one of the day was standing room only will people waiting outside the door trying to get in. I went to check it out when I saw people filing out. What gives?...
Esnatech, today announced the release of version 8.5 of Office-LinX, a unified communications platform that enables enterprises to integrate UC with cloud-based technologies such as Google Apps, VMware Zimbra , Salesforce.com, and Microsoft BPOS/Office 365. Office-LinX is optimized to work...
I wanted to give an update to my Asterisk Hack Post-mortem article. By the way, I love this image of a hacker sporting a fedora in case you're wondering why I used it in both articles! I found this interesting...
Having your production Asterisk-based phone system hacked is no fun, as I have learned from first-hand experience over the past few days. Even the best of IT administrators taking ever security precaution in the book dreads the day their critical...
Today, Fonality announced it has appointed former Microsoft Exec David Scult (image right) as Chief Executive Officer. This is the second CEO in just a couple years. Dean Mansfield replaced Chris Lyman CEO, the founder of Fonality. I'm a fan...
I discovered a new, powerful, open source auto-dialer called Newfies-Dialer that is offered by Star2Billing S.L, and is distributed free of charge, with no ongoing licensing costs. Star2Billing also wrote CDR-Stats, a replacement for Asterisk Stat used in FreePBX, as...
According to Digium, they just released their 8-port T1/E1 card designed for high density Asterisk deployments. The TE820 includes eight independently software-selectable digital telephony interfaces, supporting up to 192 channels (in T1/J1 mode) or 240 channels (in E1 mode).In a...
Skype deepened its partnership with Facebook today by adding Facebook video calling directly within Skype for both its Mac and Windows applications. The just announced Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac and Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows can initiate a Facebook...
Today, at a standing room only session presented by Digium's Jason Parker he discussed Digium's R-Series (R = Redundancy) appliance, which adds redundancy to analog & PRI trunks. It comes in two models - an analog model supporting 8 analog...
At AstriCon, I sat down with Digium's Steve Sokol, Asterisk Marketing Director, to discuss the big Asterisk 10 release. It's quite the version leap from 1.1, 1.2, 1.4 , 1.6, to 1.8 - and now to 10.0. Ironically, I knocked...
Everyone seemed to have a great time at the AstriCon Conference Party which took place at Fat Cats, a bowling alley and video game establishment. The last shuttle left around 11:35pm and it sure was a rowdy bunch (but in...
Today's luncheon at the AstriCon conference was packed to the gills. I saw an open seat at Mark Spencer's table and some Digium folks. But the tables were so crammed close together that I couldn't figure out how to traverse...
During an AstriCon session on VoIP security the speaker discussed how easy it was to hack voicemail PINs, but not to listen to your voice messages but to initiate "call backs" using spoofed CallerIDs. Essentially, this leverages the "call back"...
For those that couldn't make AstriCon, thought I'd share this brief ~5 minute snippet of the 1st AstriCon session on Tuesday 10/25/11. Gives you some flavor of the awesome attendance and a little bit of the show content. I captured...
Here's a 360° panoramic of the Astricon exhibit floor taken at 1:54pm today. The show floor opens at 5pm today, so this is a sneak peak! The Astricon exhibits are still being setup in this panoramic. I wanted to take...
I captured a panoramic image of the first session taking place at AstriCon in the Westin Westminster hotel in Denver, Colorado. It's an interactive panoramic, so use your mouse to move around. I didn't do a 360 degree panoramic since...
Today, Panasonic launched a line of new desktop SIP phones pitting them against Aastra, Cisco, Polycom, snom, and other SIP desktop phone vendors. I spoke with Panasonic to learn more about their new offering. First, it's worth pointing out that...
Kerio Technologies, a company established in 1997, is launching a new Asterisk-based PBX today. They are announcing Kerio Operator 1.1, an IP-PBX that is designed to be easy-to-use and targeting the SMB space. Kerio Technologies has 180 employees and is...
Google has adopted Jingle as the default protocol for Google Talk. Jingle is an extension of the XMPP which allows for peer-to-peer and session control (signalling) for multimedia interactions such as VoIP and videoconferencing.The protocol was developed by Google, Collabora,...
With TMC's ITEXPO West coming up sooner than you think (September 13-15), I thought I'd share the news that Fonality has been signed as the newest platinum sponsor for TMC's ITEXPO. For the first time ever, ITEXPO will be at...
VoIP has come a long way since it was first popularized by VocalTec in the mid 1990s. Here is a slideshow of the Top 20 VoIP Innovators of all time with photo captions explaining why they merit this top 20...
In case you hadn't heard, Skype has decided to not renew the agreement for Digium's Skype for Asterisk, effectively killing Skype for Asterisk. Skype for Asterisk will not be available for sale or activation after July 26, 2011.Skype for Asterisk...
Imagine being able to carry a PC on your keychain, well imagine no more! David Braben a game developer invented a skeletal computer on a USB stick that runs Linux (Ubuntu), and gets you connected to the Internet. This tiny...