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August 2013

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Steve Wozniak Keynote Video

August 29, 2013


Steve Wozniak "the Woz", Steve Job's right-hand man was the featured keynote speaker at ITEXPO. I captured a few videos of him speaking. My plan was to capture just a single video, but my iPhone 4S rang (on vibrate) in the middle of me video recording and it stopped the video recording! Why did Apple put calling priority higher than video recording?

FreePBX Booth Showcases 200 VoIP Devices

August 29, 2013

Applied Global Technologies - Best Kept Cloud Video Conferencing Secret?

August 29, 2013


At ITEXPO I met with Applied Global Technologies (AGT), which was founded in the early 1990s, making it one of the oldest video conferencing solutions on the market, even if it isn't very well known. AGT offers managed video services and cloud video services that can be white labelled by service providers. They mentioned Level3 whitelabels their solution, as well as AT&T.

They currently support 720p resolution with support for mobile, Mac, PC, Polycom.

Yealink has an Amazing Booth at ITEXPO!

August 28, 2013

FreePBX World iSymphony Session 360 degree Panoramic View

August 28, 2013

Demo of New iSymphony at FreePBX World

August 28, 2013

FreePBX World Live Blogging

August 28, 2013

Just stopped in the FreePBX World session located at ITEXPO and it's pretty packed. Check out the photo: {click for larger}


Tony Lewis is now talking about the FreePBX ecosystem. He started off by explaining why the FreePBX tree frog logo. Tony said, "Tree frogs can only go forwards, never backwards." Well, there ya go, mystery solved!

Tony talked about how FreePBX documentation was scattered and is now centralized into a new wiki.





ALICE Receptionist Wins StartupCamp 8 at ITEXPO

August 28, 2013

StartupCamp 8, located at ITEXPO featured startups giving their product pitches, pitting one startup against another until there was one man standing. Or should I say woman, since the winner was ALICE, a cool receptionist designed for visitors to corporations that have trended away from paying for receptionists near the front door just to greet guests.

StartupCamp 8 begin with a keynote address by Jeff Bonforte Communications Platform SVP at Yahoo. Bonforte told a great story about when he previously worked Yahoo! the first time and as one of the lead negotiators, he missed an opportunity to buy Twitter for $25 million, Twitters drop-bottom dollar amount and Yahoo offered $20 million. $5 million separating Yahoo & Twitter and preventing Jeff from becoming a deal-making legend.

Microsoft Lync Session Jam Packed at ITEXPO

August 27, 2013


I just got out of a jam-packed panel discussion on Microsoft Lync - Why You Need to Develop a Migration Strategy Now. I'd share a picture but I was moderating the session, so didn't want to whip out my phone and snap a picture. But I estimated about 36 people attended the session. I even had a surprise panelist, Skip Chilcott from Microsoft making it 5 total panelists that also included Laura Neidel from Sonus, Ramon Felder from Patton Networks, Alan Percy from AudioCodes, and Jeff Dworkin from Sangoma.

As I was leaving the session I ran into a Digium / Asterisk employee who commented that the WebRTC session he attended and this Lync session were the two most well-attended panels.


Special Technology Innovation Panel at ITEXPO [VIDEO]

August 27, 2013

Grandstream UCM6100 Asterisk PBX Makes Major Strides

August 27, 2013


Last month I was pretty harsh in my analysis of the Grandstream UCM6100 and on top of the open source issues and burning their partners, it also had some security issues. Well, Ward Mundy has a new report on the UCM6100 and he is impressed with the response Grandstream has had to the community's concerns.

He writes, "The short version of this story is Grandstream has addressed most of the open source issues and they’ve resolved well over a hundred bugs. In addition, they’ve published excellent documentation on the PBX in addition to a tutorial on how to interconnect the UCM6100 with other devices including FreePBX®-based Asterisk servers such as PBX in a Flash. So we are pleasantly surprised by Grandstream’s efforts to address many of the concerns that were raised by some of us in the open source community."

He also posted this interesting tidbit:
The silver lining may very well be the functionality boost you’ll get from the addition of a $100 OBi202 device with a Bluetooth adapter.





FreePBX - Most Powerful & Flexible Phone System Known to Man

August 25, 2013

I've been writing about VoIP and reviewing VoIP products since 1996, but even I need help once in awhile to figure out how to get a certain VoIP feature to work, how to install an IP-PBX, how to configure an advanced phone feature, etc. Well, recently I had to deploy a FreePBX system in a production environment for another company and I hit a few stumbling blocks that required a call to FreePBX's technical support and I have to say they were very responsive, extremely knowledgeable and very helpful.

One of my first stumbling blocks was getting second dialtone on a specific FXO port simply by pressing one of the line keys on a Grandstream GXP2100 phone. The reason is there is a DoorKing security gate system hooked into one of the Sangoma FXO ports that listens for certain DTMF touchtones to open and close the gate.

First, I had to create three groups in chan_dahdi_groups.conf, which is done in the FreePBX UI via this URL:
http://[ipaddress]/admin/config.php?display=dahdi
group=0 -> FXO trunks - channels 5, 6, and 7 (normal inbound/outbound lines)
group=1 -> FXO trunk  - channel  8 (special DoorKing port)
group=2 -> FXS lines  - channels 1, 2, 3, and 4 (analog devices)

I separated the DoorKing into its own trunk line group so it wouldn't be used for outbound calling. I also had to change the context to "from-analog" for the FXO ports for routing via channel number to work.









Jackery Air Rechargeable Battery

August 13, 2013


Jackery, provider of premium rechargeable battery products for mobile devices, today officially launched the Jackery Air, the company’s latest innovative battery pack product to extend your gadget's runtime. Currently offered in a bright orange color, the Jackery Air will be available in additional colors later in the year. As of today, it is now available for purchase on Amazon.com for $79.95.

They claim the Jackery Air is the world’s thinnest rechargeable battery. Similar in size to the iPhone 5, the Jackery Air provides users with up to five days of usage and up to 6 months of standby time!


GFI Max Backup Review

August 12, 2013

Here's an early sneak peek of my TMC Labs review of GFI Max Backup, which will be published in the 4th quarter issue of Cloud Computing Magazine. I've always been impressed with GFI's software tools, going back over the last 10-15 years, including anti-spam for Exchange, server monitoring tools, and more. Over the last few years they've expanded their software tools into Remote Monitoring and Management tools (RMM) with their GFI Max product which competes with Kaseya. GFI Max is pretty powerful, but offers a much simpler user experience than Kaseya, which tends to be more complex.

FreePBX World - Just Days Away!

August 12, 2013

The first ever FreePBX World co-located at ITEXPO is just 16 days away, taking place at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I recently wrote about FreePBX and gave a sneak peek of the conference agenda for FreePBX World you should check out.

I'm attending ITEXPO to cover all the latest news on VoIP, WebRTC, Asterisk & FreePBX, cloud communications, and much more. Oh, and did I mention Apple legend Steve Wozniak is keynoting?

ITEXPO is one of the longest running communications shows and it continues to add excellent new content to the conference tracks, exciting new co-located events like FreePBX World & Startup Camp, as well as headliner keynoters like former Apple & Pepsi CEO John Sculley, 3Com founder and Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe, and many more.

If you haven't registered already, head over here, but you better be quick, I hear the hotel room block is almost full!





iotum Adds WebRTC VoIP to Calliflower Conferencing

August 7, 2013

iotum today announced some improvements to its Calliflower conferencing service, the biggest of which is a new WebRTC-enabled native SIP client – Calliflower Connect. Previously, Calliflower required you either call in via PSTN or use Skype, but now WebRTC adds yet another dial-in method - a frictionless one at that since you don't need to install anything. PCs or other devices that don't have Skype installed can now take advantage of WebRTC, which is enabled on Google Chrome and Firefox.

I did a quick test and was able to connect to the meeting using WebRTC VoIP technology from my PC and I was also able to dial-in to the Calliflower provided PSTN number and enter a PIN to join the meeting.

Grandstream UCM6100 PBX - Security & GPLv2 Disaster?

August 5, 2013


Last week I wrote Grandstream UCM6100 PBX - Yet Another Aastra & snom Disaster? I was looking at it from a partner and reseller perspective. But I was talking with FreePBX's Tony Lewis and he mentioned he discovered the version of Asterisk running on the UCM6100 was 25 versions old, over a year old and with several security flaws fixed since then.

Ward Mundy over at Nerd Vittles also discovered some major security flaws, including a major one in the IVR that could enable a hacker to springboard out from the IVR to the PSTN via the UCM6100's FXO ports. Putting aside the old version of Asterisk and security flaws, the UCM6100 is impressive in several respects. Perhaps the most impressive is that you can get a 2 port FXO / 2 port FXS for $264!


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