FreePBX Intro: Past, Present and Future

In case you missed it, FreePBX's lead developer Philippe Lindheimer gave a wonderful presentation on FreePBX at Astricon this past Oct. (2009). The presentation give a very nice overview of FreePBX, its capabilities, and what the future holds. See it here:

http://www.astricon.net/2009/astricon/presentation/FreePBX/index.htm

Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team
(lazytt on the FreePBX forums)
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FreePBX: Restrict an extension to a specific trunk

Many a time, the question has arisen on how to address a seemingly simple issue: restrict a given extension to a specific trunk when using the FreePBX gui for Asterisk. Due to the internals of FreePBX, this is no simple feat, especially if you are trying to do this from the gui. However, if your willing to get your hands dirty (just a bit!), here is a simple and clean method to restrict an extension to a specific trunk.

Be forewarned: this method can easily confuse even the most initiated as it works counter to the logic that is FreePBX. That being said, as long as you don't forget that you have this code in place, it shouldn't be a problem for most installations.

Here is what you need to do. First you need to get the name of the outbound trunk you wish to limit the extension to. In FreePBX, select the trunk from the trunk page. Then have a look at the url in the browser's address bar. The url will look something like this:

http://server-address.com/admin/config.php?display=trunks&extdisplay=OUT_1

We are looking for the number part of the blue text, and it is likely to be different on your system. Here is a screenshot of the url, with the part we want circled in red:

 In your favorite text editor, add the following to /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf:

[macro-dialout-trunk-predial-hook]

exten => s,1,goto(${AMPUSER},1)

exten => 1234,1,Set(DIAL_TRUNK=my_trunk_number)

Do not edit the first two lines. On the third line, replace 1234 with the extension that you wish to restrict and my_trunk_number with the number of your trunk which we retrieved earlier. Add additional lines for more extensions, replacing 1234 with the extension number you want and my_trunk_number with the number of the trunk.

In closing, there exists a FreePBX module with a purpose similar to our's, however I think it overly complicates the issue in a way that most user will not appreciate. Should you want to have a look, you can find it here.

Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team
(lazytt on the FreePBX forums)
read more tips and tricks here: www.mbrevda.blogspot.com

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Asterisk and Google Wave: 10 ideas

Now that Google wave invites have started going out - lets see how long it will take for some wave - Asterisk integration. If you have already received you wave invite and are interested in developing, here are some ideas you may wish to consider:

1. Conference app - control the conference and invite users to join from within wave
2. VM bot - alerting you to new vm, allowing playback, etc
3. Call popup's with new caller info - not sure how annoying/useful this could be
4. Click-to-call - initiate a call from with in wave
5. Queue control/stats - log in/out of a queue, see real time stats
6. Status - have asterisk update you wave status in real time with you on the phone/available status (is there even such a concept in wave? I really need an invite already!)
7. Fax - fax a wave via asterisk!
8. Receive faxes - although you would be simpler to just have your faxes forwarded to email
9. Day/night mode - toggle your system call flow via a Day/Night style module
10. Parking lot - view real-time parking lot stats, grab a caller out of the lot
    

Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team

(lazytt on the FreePBX forums)

looking for more? click here now!

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Fax For Asterisk and FreePBX

Digium's recent announcement of their new fax product "Fax for Asterisk", which can bring reliable and simple to set up faxing to asterisk, has spawned a new, all-to-common-these-days, question: When will FreePBX support the new application?

While there is no commitment as to if/when the new application will be supported in FreePBX, let's hope that there is a good reason for the 2.6 holdup... (2.6rc2 was released two weeks ago - now it seem as if 2.6 has been put on hold) ;)
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Is Labs Coming to Google Calendar? [updated]

Speculation has abounded regarding new features for Google Calendar, with users reporting the ability to see some new gadgets (albeit not use them). Now it seem that Calendar Labs is closer then ever. I'm not sure how long this has been up there, but take a look at the .gif that Google uses to display icons with in Calendar:


Notice the labs icon? This seems like a clear sign that Google intends to roll out more features to Google Calendar, hopefully in the near future.

Additional, notice the icon directly to the left of the labs icon. That looks like the drop down box from which you can chose to reply to an email in Gmail. I don't see that icon currently being used anywhere. Is Google thinking about integrating some sort of email-reply option directly from Calendar?

The truth is, try as I might, I can't think of any "killer" gadgets that I would want to see in Google Calendar. I think its an extremely mature and solid product. Yet I'm sure Google will dream up something that we didn't know were missing. What features would you like to see added?

UPDATE: seem like we were correct!

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New hints about Gmail international smsing

Previously noted, Gmail temporarily had a (non working) option to send sms's to international cell phones (before they removed the sms option from Gmail Labs). (sms is currently limited to us phones) At the time, one of the error messages Gmail gave when trying to sms an international phone was "Your message was not delivered. [some number] cannot be verified as a valid mobile number...", leading to the obvious question: what is a verified number, and how do you verify your number?

Recently, Google has added the option to reset the password of a Google Account by SMS. Obviously, an option like this is a form of verification of your mobile number, by virtue of the fact that you wouldn't put in anybody else phone number - as this would put your account security at risk.

Additionally, there have been reports new accounts requiring sms activation. And for the longest time, you could receive your Google Calendar updates by sms - if you verify your phone first.

All of these requirements would seem to be a step towards gathering a database of verified sms users which would fulfill two of Google's important rules. First, it would prevent spamming, as you wouldn't be able to sms a "random" unverified number. Only Google users who verified there numbers will be "textable". There will probably be an opt-out option as well. Second, it will allow Google to monitor sms habits by not only seeing what you are writing, but also by knowing exactly to whom you are sending the sms, and if that person reply's, etc.

Bringing them yet one step closer to knowing more about you than you know about yourself.

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Create an empty file of a specific size

Recently, I wanted to run a quick test to see the download speed of a web host. All I wanted was to download a file, any file really, but I wanted something 1gb in size. Moving to the www root, here is what I did:

dd if=/dev/zero of=file_to-create bs=1k count=1000000

This instantly gave me a 1gb file which I was then able to download!

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Is Google expanding sms's to the rest of the world?

Is the big G planning on adding sms capabilities to gmail for international destinations? After a rocky start, Google (re)introduced sms-ing to US phones in December 2008. Since then, if you would try to send an sms to a non US number you would get an error along the lines of "At this time sms is avalible to US numbers only".

Today it seems that they are starting to allow sms'ing to international destinations. Right clicking on a contact and selecting Vidoe & more -> Send SMS shows the following chat box:


Notice the new message quota system (which doesn't apply to US bound sms's). "Initially, you're granted a quota of fifty messages", says this help page which seems to have been posted today (2009-6-11). For every sms you send, your quota gets decresed by one. To earn them back: "Every time you receive an SMS message in Chat ... your quota increases by five". Additional, the quota gets reset every 24 hours.

I'm not sure when this service is going live, but every number that I tired to sms got one of the following error's:

Also, if you try to sms a contact that doesn't have any listed mobile numbers, the "add a number" prompt still warns you that "[sms chat is] US phones only for now".

What's interesting to note is Google's business model here. While in the US the cost for sms's are covered by the reciver of the sms - and hence Google can "afford" to send them for free, it's no secret that send sms's to Europeian providers can be rather expensive. Google seems to have some system worked out a system with the carriers where they recoup the expenses for sent sms's from the money they receive on received sms's (think of it like the 900 number of sms). They even offer you a this tip in case you've run out of sms's for the day:

"Keep in mind that if you'd like a higher message quota, you can always send an SMS to your own phone, and then reply to that message multiple times. Every time you send a reply message, your quota is increased by five. Effectively, you're buying more messages by paying your phone company for these outgoing messages."

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Use your Google Account to Auto-Login to Facebook

Facebook has a cool (new?) feature that allows you to log in in to your Facebook page using you're Google (or Yahoo/Myspace) account. This eliminates the need to remember a different username/password for every site. All you need is you're Google account. Here's how to set it up:

First sign in to Facebook like you normally do. Then click Settings -> Account Settings.


Click Linked Accounts.



Select Google and click Link New Account.

A new page from Google will pop-up asking you to (log in if necessary and to) confirm the association, click Allow, and ensure that "remember this Approval" is checked.


That's all! Next time you visit Facebook.com, if you are logged in to you're Google account, you will be automatically logged in - no need to enter your Facebook username/password. If only other sites would make life so simple. Twitter, are you listening?

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Gmail two way sync and calander sync for Nokia

Google just updated the supported sync protocol for Nokia s60 series phones such as the e71, to Microsoft's ActiveSync. This allows two-way syncing and calendar syncing.

Get the full how-to here. I needed to upgrade Mail for Exchange to version 2.09 first, in order to get the sync working.

update: this now includes syncing of email as well!

Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team

lazytt - FreePBX forums

hi365 - IRC

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