Twin Cities Asterisk Users

TCAUG - Twin Cities Asterisk Usergroup Meeting - Second Ever BBQ July 13th 6:30pm

2010-07-12T16:32:27Z

As I mentioned at previous meetings, if there was enough interest I'd be happy to host a BBQ on July 13th at my house. I thought that we'd keep the time the same (6:30pm) and let everyone know that there would be a General discussion over brats / hamburgers and beverage at Jay Taylor's house. Although not required if so inclined please bring a dish / beverage to share. I'll get the fire started about 6:15pm and begin cooking at 6:30. There is room inside if it rains. Thanks!

Please call 612-454-6738 and follow the instructions, I'm trying to get a head count. No, you aren't calling my Asterisk box! I've made some changes to my network recently and the Asterisk box appears to be a causality. I really DO have one though. I live in Mendota Heights. It's just South of St. Paul on 35E.

Jay

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TCAUG - Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group Meeting June 2010

2010-06-05T10:35:08Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VOIP Technology,

The agenda for our June meeting is: Jay, Jason and others will help setup an asterisk system for our host. TCMaker has been very generous in providing a meeting space for us and we will try to get an asterisk system up and running for them. After we get that going we will try to get some phones connected so they can actually use the system.

I know I mentioned another project for the June meeting but there have been some legal issues with that project. The web site for FreSpeech as been taken down by a C & D order. I'm not comfortable using/showing software that might be part of an ongoing law suit so we'll just have to post pone this one until things get worked out. It looks very promising and I hope things work out well for the author.

*** HUGE NOTE ***

This will be the FIRST Tuesday MEETING! Yes, you read that right, FIRST and Tuesday. We'll start the meeting at about 6:30pm.

This months meeting will be at the Twin Cities Maker location again.

You can see our calendar entry on June 8th. http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/calendar/

The address of the Hack Factory is:

3119 E 26th St. Minneapolis, MN 55406

There's parking mainly on the street. We'll have our NEW start time of 6:30pm.

Hope to see you there!

Jay

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TCAUG - Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group Meeting May 2010

2010-05-05T20:42:15Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Technology,

The agenda for our Maymeeting is: Jay, Jason and Eric went to the Atlanta Asterisk User Conference back in April. Jay and Jason (If he shows up) will go over some of the highlights of the conference.

Here were some of the topics:

Ward Mundy, Nerd Vittles - Beyond the Orgasmatron
Joe Roper, Star2Billing - Virtualized Multi-Tenant Asterisk Systems with A2Billing
Mike Storella, Snom - Subscriber Sets for Asterisk Systems
Marc Fribush, Aretta Communications - Getting to 99.999 with NetPBX PRO Hosted Asterisk
Robert Messer, ABPTech - Selling Open Source Telecomm
Konrad Hammel, Sangoma - Interface Selection and Configuration
Mark Carson, Aastra - Unique VoIP Subscriber Sets and Systems
DJ Belieny - Asterisk High Availability / Fail Over Solutions
VoIP Service Provider Forum
Kevin Lynn, George Washington University, A Walk on the Dark Side - How VoIP Attacks Happen
Jared Smith, Digium, A Special Presentation

The June meeting will be about LumenVox and making it work with http://www.frespeech.org/

*** HUGE NOTE ***

This will be the LAST Saturday MEETING! Yes, you read that right, LAST. We'll be switching to a week night. If you have ANY interest in determining what night of the week it will be, then YOU need to SHOW UP at the May meeting.

This months meeting will be at the Twin Cities Maker location again. (It's not currently on the calendar, but I'm sure that will be fixed.)

You can see our calendar entry on May 8th. http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/calendar/

The address of the Hack Factory is:

3119 E 26th St. Minneapolis, MN 55406

There's parking mainly on the street. We'll have our usual start time of 11:30am.

Hope to see you there!

Jay

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TCAUG - Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group Meeting April 2010

2010-04-09T21:12:18Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Technology,

The agenda for our April meeting is: VOIP issues at a medium/large business with call queuing/routing, an IVR that includes use of a third party for processing.

This months meeting will be at the Twin Cities Maker location again.

You can see our calendar entry on April 10th. http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/calendar/

The address of the Hack Factory is:

3119 E 26th St. Minneapolis, MN 55406

There's parking mainly on the street. We'll have our usual start time of 11:30am.

Hope to see you there!

Jay

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TCAUG - Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group Meeting Mar 2010

2010-03-10T20:30:16Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Technology,

The agenda for our March meeting is: VOIP Basics at the Twin Cities Maker location. I'll bring a simple computer with Asterisk running with a few extensions. I'll probably cover a little of the history of Asterisk and have a few other things for "show and tell". I'll bring a few copies of the latest CD for PBX in a Flash for people that want to try it on their own equipment.

You can see our calendar entry on March 13th. http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/calendar/

The address of the Hack Factory is:

3119 E 26th St. Minneapolis, MN 55406

There's parking mainly on the street. We'll have our usual start time of 11:30am.

Hope to see you there!

Jay

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Spreading the news! Security Advisory from Olle and Digium

2010-02-17T16:14:34Z

Friends,

Last week, Hans Petter Selansky alerted us of a potential security issue in all releases of Asterisk. In fact, it doesn't involve the code, but the most common way to construct dialplans. If you have something like this in your Asterisk, you need to update your dialplans:

[incoming-from-voip]
exten => _X., 1, dial(SIP/${EXTEN})

Many VoIP protocols support a large character set, that may cause harm in your dialplan
====================================================================

I've written an article about this on my blog, where my summary says:

"Because of a conflict between allowed characters in the called number or name in many VoIP protocols and the way Asterisk handles channel variables, there is a security risk hidden in many dialplans based on examples provided over the years by the Asterisk developers, trainers and community. The primary risk is that by using an ampersand in the dialstring, a user can access protected resources or misuse the pbx services. However, this character is not the only problem, as other characters may cause unexpected or problematic behaviour."

There will be an Asterisk Security Advisory document coming out from Digium soon, as well as updated documentation and examples within the Asterisk source code tree. I strongly advise everyone to follow these and stay updated. (I have no access to the ASA system myself and can't generate an official security alert).

For more information about this issue and some code examples of what I personally currently think are good ways to prevent misuse of your services, please read my blog article at

http://www.voip-forum.com/?p=241&preview=true

Please help us to distribute this message!
=================================
We need help from all involved in the Asterisk eco-system. This is not something that the development team can solve by itself. We can add documents, READMEs and fix our own examples. But that won�t fix it. We need everyone involved to pump this information out in all the veins that runs through the Asterisk eco-system. In all languages needed, we shall say: "Audit your dialplans, fix this issue. And do it now."

Everyone that runs a web site with dialplan examples - audit your examples, fix them. Everyone that has published books on Asterisk - publish errata on your web site. Please help us - and do it now.

If you add web links, please add links both to http://www.asterisk.org where the official documents will soon be published, as well as to my blog (if you like, of course). But don't just refer to my blog entry alone.

I have updated my own servers and will now start auditing my customers' servers. After that I will have to update all my training materials so I don't repeat the bad examples. There's no magic bullet, no wonderful code patch, that can fix this, just hard work with all dialplans that accept calls over VoIP channels.

Let us all work together to fix this!

With Asterisk greetings!

/Olle

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TCAUG - Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group Meeting Feb 2010

2010-02-12T19:17:08Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Technology,

The agenda for our next meeting is: -Plan out the year- Yeah, I know, we did this last month. True. But now we need PRESENTERS!

We are having trouble getting access to a consistent meeting location so we are having the meeting at the Fuddruckers on France Ave, just North of 494. I'd like everyone to bring their topic of choice and we'll start to line up the presentations.

Last time we talked a little about the meeting format and we thought that something like this would work:

Social time 15- 20 min
Announcements 15 min
Presentation - Topic 45 min
Year long topic 10-15 min SIP and stuff. It was my idea so I'll take this one.

We also talked quite a bit about picking a different date/time for the meeting. The hope is that by having the meeting at a different time, we might attract people who don't want to / can't give up their weekend to attend a meeting. Please think of days/times that are available to you so we can pick a different day/time.

Here are some of the topics mentioned at the Jan meeting:

Legacy Hardware - If you know legacy phone hardware, please consider giving some talks on how it all works.
Virtualizing Asterisk and other telephony software. Know about virtualization or have experience? Tell us about it.
Hard phones and their codecs. There are some codecs that are getting more popular and how do they all work.
SCCP - Rumor has it that there are several people in the Twincities that know quite a bit about this topic.
Asterisk alternatives - What is FreeSwitch and how does it compare to Asterisk. Let's do a side by side comparison.
OpenSER / OpenSIPS / Kamailio - What can this software do and what makes it tic. Tell us what you know.
DUNDi / IAX - Show us the ins and outs of DUNDi and/or IAX.
Asterisk Classes - Have you taken any? What are they like? What did you learn? We want to know.
Backing up Asterisk - What works for you and what would you do differently? Teach us more.

There, that's a good start. Look over the list and pick something that you know about or that interests you. We'd love to have you give a presentation to the group on a topic. If you'd like to select a topic that isn't listed, great, we'd still like to hear it.

Projects - There is a group that could use our talents. They are the Twin Cities Makers Group http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/
They could probably use a nice phone system like asterisk to manage their phones and get their message out. How about we help them out with getting a system in place and do something to help this group. Who knows, maybe they would even let us land there a few times for a meeting. Have any hardware that you would consider donating to them? I think this would be a good group project for us. Let's find out more.

The meeting will begin at 11:30am on Saturday Feb 13th, 2010. If you can't make the meeting then please email us a list of what you'd like to present for the next year.

Hope you can make it!

Jay Taylor

p.s Sorry for the really late email on this. I am trying to get them out sooner, really I am. Since I'm doing the year long topic of SIP, I've noticed quite a few books out there on SIP. Anyone have one that they really liked? I'm looking for recommendations.

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TCAUG - Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group Meeting Jan 2010

2010-01-07T22:00:16Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Technology,

The agenda for our next meeting is: -Plan out the year-

We have a conflict with the meeting location so we are having a planning meeting at the Fuddruckers on France Ave, just North of 494. I'd like everyone to bring their requests for topics, subjects, hardware, etc. We'd like to get some topics lined up for the year along with speakers / presenters.

I'm also looking for a long term topic that we can cover at each meeting. I'd like to learn a whole lot more about SIP and its gory details. How about an in-dept year of SIP?

Bring your questions, ideas and projects and we will help you work through them.

The meeting will begin at 11:30am on Saturday Jan 9th, 2010. If you can't make the meeting then please email us a list of what you'd like to see for the next year.

Hope you can make it!

Jay Taylor

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TCAUG - Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group Meeting (NEW LOCATION)

2009-11-12T20:21:37Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Technology,

The agenda for our next meeting is:

Astricon Happenings. If you didn't make it to Astricon this year, sow up and get a re-cap of the events.

Bring your questions, ideas and projects and we will help you work through them.

Fuddruckers ($1.50 Bottles of beer) is close by or we can order pizza. The meeting will begin at 11:30am on Saturday Nov14th, 2009.

The address is 4445 West 77th Street, Edina Minnesota, 55435. We will meet in the shared conference room. Get there early to get the best chairs!

There is a large parking lot on the West side of the building. Please enter through the doors on the Southwest corner of the building, if you have trouble getting in, call 952-649-9925.

Jay will bring what's left of the beverages.

Hope you can make it!

Jay Taylor

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TCAUG- Twin Cities Asterisk Users Group Meeting - The October Meeting is Canceled

2009-10-09T21:07:22Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Technology,

Sorry for the late notice on this Saturday's meeting but it will be canceled. I apologize for this.

We are in need of a few things:

1. A place to land. We sort of have access to the conference room in Edina but it is kind of small.
If anyone has some ideas or suggestions, please let me know.

2. No topic is too small or insignificant. We are looking for presenters. What have you done with
Asterisk recently? Share it with the group, I'm sure that there are people who would like to hear about it.

3. At the next meeting - November - we'll get to hear about Astricon from hoenix AZ. Jason and Eric will both
be attending the conference and will talk about the conference, what they learned and possibly how to
install/use the three free digium items. Attendees get skype for Asterisk, Fax for Asterisk and a g729 codec.

Here's something I learned about recently: http://www.vestec.ca/ has some inexpensive voice recognition software
that works with Asterisk. In fact they have partnered with digium and I think they use digium's licensing software.

It's $99/port and only $15/port/year maintenance. They have some comparisons with other voice recognition software
and are rated quite high. Anyone interested in trying this out and present to the group? (see item 2 above.)

See you all next month.

Jay

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A Big Thank YOU! Can you spare another weekend?

2009-09-24T20:42:41Z

Friends,

I wanted to let you all to know how much I appreciated your help with moving my office furniture and supplies during
the Asterisk meeting. With my back and Kurt's mother's sudden passing, it was certainly a big help and most definitely
a wonderful show of support. To all of you, a big Thank You.

A lot was completed Saturday and there is still a bit more to do. If anyone is free on this Saturday, I would love to
buy everyone lunch for a bit more help. Those of you who can stick out the day I'd love to buy dinner as well. Please
let me fill your stomachs and your cars.

When: This Saturday, September 26 at 10:30AM at the Sound Choice office, 7839 12th Ave S, Bloomington 55425.

Lunch provided. Dinner as well. Goods will also be graciously given away.

PS: This Monday, the pallet racking will be taken down and the floor swept. Final dumpster collection if anyone finds they can spare a weekday too, I'd really love the help. I'm happy to barter for VoIP, Computer and Networking equipment or services.

Sincerely,

Eric Osterberg

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The TwinCities Asterisk Users Group will be meeting this Saturday at 11:30am.

2009-09-11T18:19:22Z

TwinCities Asterisk Users Group Meeting
Date: September 12th, 2009

The TwinCities Asterisk Users Group will be meeting this Saturday at 11:30am.

The location will be in Bloomington MN at the offices of Sound Choice Communications LLC. (For the last time ever, Offices are closing)
The address is 7839 12th Ave S, 55425. Take I-494 to the 12th Ave exit and go South to the second building on the East side of the street. You can telephone 651-999-0888 if you get lost or have questions.

Come and share your experiences and ask questions.

Lunch will be ordered from a local pizza joint.

Please bring a lawn chair or folding chair. This meeting will be a social event and give away. Everyone leaves with a door price and a full stomach!
Just two weeks to empty the building. Jason, Eric and Jay have all had recent Asterisk installation and troubleshooting experiences to share. Bring your questions and share your love of Asterisk.

See you tomorrow.

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Asterisk User Group Meeting (NEW LOCATION)

2009-08-06T23:00:48Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Technology,

The agenda for our next meeting is:

Call Center Software and/or Disaster Recovery Planning.

Bring your questions, ideas and projects and we will help you work through them.

Fuddruckers ($1.50 Bottles of beer) is close by or we can order pizza. The meeting will begin at 11:30am on Saturday Aug 8th, 2009.

The address is 4445 w 77th St Edina Minnesota, 55435. We will meet in the shared conference room.

There is a large parking lot on the West side of the building. Please enter through the doors on the Southwest corner of the building, if you have trouble getting in call 952-649-9925.

Jay will bring the beverages.

Hope you can make it!

-Jason Brockman

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Update - July Twin Cities Asterisk Usergroup Meeting - First Ever BBQ Details

2009-07-10T18:40:17Z

As I mentioned at the last meeting, if there was enough interest I'd be happy to host a BBQ at my house. I thought that we'd keep the time the same (11:30am) and let everyone know that there would be a General discussion over brats and beverage at Jay Taylor's house. There may be a special guest to discuss on a particular topic, or not. Although not required if so inclined please bring a dish / beverage to share. I'll get the fire started about 11AM and begin cooking at 11:30. There is room inside if it rains. Thanks!

Please visit: http://www.hitechmn.com/tcaug for a google map and address info or call 651-323-5009. I've put up a web page with the BBQ information. It will be a small group based on who has called so far. If you haven't called to let me know you are coming, that's OK, come anyhow, we'd love to have you there/here.

Jay

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July Twin Cities Asterisk Usergroup Meeting - First Ever BBQ

2009-07-08T18:16:51Z

As I mentioned at the last meeting, if there was enough interest I'd be happy to host a BBQ at my house. I thought that we'd keep the time the same (11:30am) and let everyone know that there would be a General discussion over brats and beverage at Jay Taylor's house. There may be a special guest to discuss on a particular topic. Although not required if so inclined please bring a dish / beverage to share. I'll get the fire started about 11AM and begin cooking at 11:30. There is room inside if it rains. Thanks!

Please call 651-323-5009 and follow the instructions, I'm trying to get a head count. Yes, you are calling my Asterisk box! I really DO have one. If there is enough interest, I'll post another message with all the details. I live in Mendota Heights. It's just South of St. Paul on 35E.

Jay

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TCAUG June 13th 2009 Meeting Update Email

2009-06-12T20:02:25Z

I've been asked to include some more information on location and traffic issues so here they are:

The address is 2356 University Ave West. Saint Paul Minnesota, 55114. We will meet in suite 401.

There is a large parking lot in the rear of the building. Please note, the doors at the front of the property are not available for use, you must enter on the South side of the building (next to the parking area). Building is on the corner of Raymond Ave and University Ave.

There are some traffic issues with Hwy 280 and Interstate 94 in the area. Please check the following web site for update information on exactly where the road construction is and when it happening.

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/tmc/trafficinfo/traffic.html

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Asterisk Meeting - Sat June 13 from 11:30-1:30

2009-06-11T22:35:15Z

The June meeting of the TAUG will be at Access Healthcare again. There will be a presentation on Tricks with FreePBX and provisioning Aastra phones. I'll have my Aastra 57i CT phone there with the wireless remote to play with. Hope to see you there!

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May Asterisk User Group Meeting News

2009-05-07T18:12:35Z

Ugh... First the bad news. I talked with Eric and he'll be out of town this weekend so there won't be a meeting this month. That's two in a row and I'm not liking it one bit. I need my asterisk fix.

There is good news though. I did get my Aastra 57i CT and it is a cool looking phone. I haven't had time to get it hooked up but Jason B. has had great luck getting the phone configured. When I last talked to him, he raved about how easy it was to get provisioned and the XML features were great. I'll try and get Jason to show some of the finer point of the Aastra line at the next meeting.

Speaking of Jason B., he mentioned to me that he has become very knowledgeable about FreePBX and how to get it to do amazing things all from the GUI with out any config file magic. (well, maybe just a little)

So June's topic will be Aastra phones (57i CT for sure) and FreePBX Magic. (I've got a month to convince Jason to show up.)

Thanks,

Jay

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Asterisk Users Group Meeting - The April Meeting is Canceled

2009-04-09T21:00:12Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Tech,

Sorry for the late notice on this Saturday's meeting but it will be canceled. I apologize for this, my daughter is turning 6 that day and I can't host the meeting. I do have some things for the next meeting though. I'll be getting a new Aastra 57iCT http://www.aastra.com/cps/rde/xchg/04/hs.xsl/19700.htm

I hope to have played with it a little and I can give a dog and pony about it.

I've also been playing with the asterisk distro from fonica. http://www.fonicaprojects.com/

I had quite a few problems getting a good copy of the CD image.

Jay

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Asterisk Users Group Meeting Tomorrow Saturday the 14th. 11:30am

2009-03-13T21:32:40Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Tech,

The agenda is open for our next meeting tomorrow. Jay Taylor is planning on an open discussion or round table.

Bring your questions, ideas and projects and we will help you work through them.

Jimmy John's is just a block away or we can order pizza. The meeting will begin at 11:30am on Saturday.

There is a large parking lot in the rear of the building. Please note, the doors at the front of the property are not available for use, you must enter on the South side of the building (next to the parking area). Building is on the corner of Raymond Ave and University Ave.

The address is 2356 University Ave West. Saint Paul Minnesota, 55114. We will meet in suite 401.

Hope you can make it!

-Eric & Jay

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Next TwinCities Asterisk Users Group Meeting, this Saturday. Valentine's Day Feb/14/2009 11:30am

2009-02-12T22:53:43Z

Hello Asterisk Users and those with an Interest in VoIP Tech,

The agenda is open for our next meeting. I think we'll plan on an open discussion of anyones choosing. If we're lacking a topic, we'll give a demo of installing fail2ban for your asterisk system.

Bring your questions, ideas and projects and we will help you work through them.

Jimmy John's is just a block away or we can order pizza. The meeting will begin at 11:30am on Saturday.

There is a large parking lot in the rear of the building. Please note, the doors at the front of the property are not available for use, you must enter on the South side of the building (next to the parking area). Building is on the corner of Raymond Ave and University Ave.

The address is 2356 University Ave West. Saint Paul Minnesota, 55114. We will meet in suite 401.

Hope you can make it!

-Eric

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