This weather calls for Jimmy Buffett.
For more ice relief, listen to Radio Margaritaville.
—
Boat drinks. Boys in the band ordered boat drinks.
Visitors just scored on the home rink.
Everything seems to be wrong.

Lately, newspaper mentioned cheap airfare.
I’ve got to fly to Saint Somewhere.
I’m close to bodily harm.

Chorus
Twenty degrees and the hockey games on.
Nobody cares; they are way too far gone,
screamin’ “Boat drinks,” somethin’
to keep them all warm.
Continue reading →

I’ve been hacking Asterisk and these Packet8 DTA310’s I’ve got in order to make the two talk to each other. So far, all I can do is get the DTA to register itself with Asterisk. I can make it ring from Asterisk, but all I get is silence.

When the DTA attempts to initiate a call, it sends a SIP INVITE, but completely ignores Asterisk’s request for authentication. I took a look at a tcpdump session for the X-Lite client and saw it properly ACK the authentication message. So it seems the DTA is acting deaf, for some reason.

I’m about to relegate these DTA’s to paperweight status. I’ve twiddled all the bits I can find on the DTA, as well as the appropriate Asterisk settings. No combination has been able to get the two talking to each other. Unless the latest Asterisk code has some miracle workaround for the DTA being dumb as rock, I’m declaring defeat on this 8×8, Inc. piece of junk.

On the bright side of VoIP, I managed to discover what was keeping X-Lite from registering on my home Asterisk server from work. The culprit was a subtle trick in my firewall rules, which were blocking the registration while at first glance seeming to accept it. Now I can use X-Lite as an extension of my home phone system from any Internet connection, anywhere in the world. And THAT is pretty damn cool!

The mt.net website might disappear when tomorrow’s wintry mix hits the area. The latest forecast calls for 1-2 inches of ice. Yuck.

The latest forecast:

ACROSS THE CENTRAL PIEDMONT AND NORTHERN COASTAL PLAIN…INCLUDING… THE TRIANGLE…ALBEMARLE…SOUTHERN PINES…SANFORD AND TARBORO…ICE ACCUMULATIONS FROM PREDOMINANTLY SLEET WILL LIKELY TOTAL ONE TO TWO INCHES. AN ADDITIONAL QUARTER OF
AN INCH OF ICE ACCRUAL FROM FREEZING RAIN IS ALSO POSSIBLE…ESPECIALLY ON TREES AND POWERLINES. THE PRECIPITATION WILL BEGIN AS A MIXTURE OF SLEET AND SNOW SUNDAY MORNING THEN CHANGE OVER TO A MIXTURE OF SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON. THE PRECIPITATION IS THEN EXPECTED TO TAPER OFF AS FREEZING RAIN OR DRIZZLE SUNDAY NIGHT.

I might cancel my doctor’s appointments for Monday because driving to Chapel Hill on Monday morning is shaping up to be impossible.

I was driving through RTP yesterday afternoon on the way back from a client site. As I passed Harrison Avenue heading east, I saw a pair of Wake County deputies ticketing drivers on the westbound side.

It used to be that Wake deputies would be the most slack. They’d pass disabled vehicles without even looking their way, or blow by you on their way to someplace. Looks like Sheriff Donnie Harrison, retired Highway Patrolman, is shaking up the department.

Is it spring yet? I read from the NWS weather page that we could be getting some messy stuff on Sunday.

I’ve got an all-day doctor’s appointment in Chapel Hill on Monday. This threatens to make that difficult to impossible. Yay.

Keep a close eye on the models to see if we’re going to get smacked with this.
—

WINTER WEATHER IS POSSIBLE SUNDAY FOR MUCH OF CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA

A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS FORECAST TO DROP SOUTHWEST THROUGH VIRGINIA SATURDAY PULLING COLD AIR INTO NORTH CAROLINA SATURDAY NIGHT AS IT EXITS INTO THE ATLANTIC. AS THIS COLD AIR SETTLES IN PLACE ACROSS CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA… ANOTHER LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL ADVANCE INTO THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BY SUNDAY MORNING. THIS SYSTEM WILL DRAW GULF OF MEXICO MOISTURE UP INTO NORTH CAROLINA SUNDAY AND BRING A THREAT FOR SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN TO THE TRIAD AND WADESBORO AREA AROUND SUNRISE. PRECIPITATION IS FORECAST TO SPREAD ACROSS CENTRAL
NORTH CAROLINA DURING THE DAY.

FREEZING RAIN AND SOME SLEET IS POSSIBLE ACROSS MUCH OF THE NORTH AND WEST PARTS OF CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA WITH RAIN EXPECTED IN THE FAYETTEVILLE AREA. SOME SUNSHINE IS FORECAST FOR SATURDAY WITH HIGH TEMPERATURES IN THE 50S… THEREFORE ONLY AREAS RECEIVING MEASURABLE SLEET ARE EXPECTED TO HAVE WIDESPREAD TRAVEL PROBLEMS. WITH THE LIQUID EQUIVALENT OF PERHAPS AS MUCH AS ONE HALF INCH OF WATER FORECAST FROM THIS SYSTEM…SOME ICE ACCUMULATION IS POSSIBLE IN THE NORTH AND WEST PARTS OF THE PIEDMONT. MEASURABLE PRECIPITATION SHOULD END BEFORE SUNSET SUNDAY… HOWEVER FREEZING DRIZZLE CAN NOT BE RULED OUT IN THE NORTH SUNDAY NIGHT BEFORE PRECIPITATION COMPLETELY ENDS.

WITH PRECIPITATION NOT EXPECTED UNTIL SUNDAY…A FAIR AMOUNT OF
UNCERTAINTY REMAINS IN THE FORECAST. THE ABOVE SCENARIO IS MERELY THE BEST PROJECTION OF EVENTS BASED ON CURRENT MODEL GUIDANCE.

RESIDENTS OF CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA SHOULD MONITOR THE LATEST
STATEMENTS AND FORECAST PROJECTIONS FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ON THIS DEVELOPING POTENTIAL WINTER WEATHER SYSTEM.

Apparently, NASA’s Mars rover Spirit has apparently dropped off the face of the Mars. It stopped sending data early Wednesday morning.

My theories are that either another software glitch has killed it, or Martian gangmembers have stripped that sucker clean. Either way, the continuing saga of Earth Vs. Mars is stacking up to be a landslide in Mars’s favor.

I’m laughing like crazy at all the Howard Dean “I Have A Scream” remixes floating around the Internet. One site with links is here.

USA Today picked up on the Dean Remixes, too.

The streetlight outside of my house burned out yesterday. Those sodium lights will shine dimly when they are about to quit, and this one has been doing that for quite some time. It was no surprise to walk outside last night and see it dark.

There is a form on Progress Energy‘s website you can use just for this. Click here to Report Streetlight Outage, and then file this info under “more useless information.” 🙂

Asterisk Links

This is a collection of links and resources I’ve collected regarding the Asterisk PBX system. It is by no means an exhaustive list. 🙂

If you are looking for assistance in implementing Asterisk in your organization, contact Siteseers at 919.277.0123.

Regards,
Mark Turner
Siteseers Inc.

Asterisk Presentation!

I presented an Asterisk presentation to the Triangle Linux Users Group on Thursday, August 11th 2005 at Red Hat’s worldwide headquarters in Raleigh. I showed how Asterisk can provide you and your business with world-class telephony. I’ll post a link to my presentation soon.

Reflashing Packet8 DTA-310 terminal adapters.

Strom Carlson has cooked up an easy way to reflash your Packet8 TAs so they can work with Asterisk. I’ve tried it and it works. It offers more features than Packet8’s own, unlocked ROM.

This reflashing method still doesn’t stop the Packet8 TA from using silence suppression (RFC-3389), which Asterisk does not yet support. Thus, you will still experience dropped audio when using this remotely.

If anyone knows of a way to solve this last nagging problem, please let me know.

Asterisk PBX
John Todd’s Asterisk config pages
Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI)
Asterisk Cookbook
Asterisk-perl home

VoIP Providers

Voicepulse Connect
Packet 8

Hardware Providers

Sipura (beware of Sipura phones)
8×8

Note: If you have a Packet8 8×8 DTA-310 you no longer need, email me at packet8 at siteseers dot com. I may buy it!

Misc. Software

Festival and Asterisk
Festival and Asterisk, part II
Festival speech synthesis
VoIP-Info Wiki

Update 04 Apr 2005: Garrett Smith at VoIPSupply.com has pointed me to his VoIP newbies forum, where those new to Asterisk can exchange information.

(I have no connection to VoIP Supply other than having once purchased some fine Polycom IP 500 phones from them.)