#AstriCon 2011: Building a Distributed Call Centre

The presentation and configuration files from my presentation at AstriCon 2011 today is available at: http://leifmadsen.com/sites/default/files/AstriCon 2011 - Building a distributed call centre.zip

AstriCon presentation today at 11:40am

I’ll be speaking at AstriCon today (and tomorrow) about building a distributed call centre. The presentation will be 35 minutes long and will contain a set of slides that moves you from an existing traditional PBX system up through a distributed model (which happens to use a call centre as the example system). A PDF of the presentation along with the configuration files from the demo will be available on my website after the presentation. Read On →

Return just PID of script with 'ps' and 'awk'

Today I ran into an issue where I am running a python script that I needed to get the process ID (PID) of, but that the process was being output with a space between ‘python’ and the actual script name (in this case, jiraircbot.py). I’m sure it’s totally overkill and there is a much easier way I didn’t find to do this, but after some scouring of The Google, I found something that works! Read On →

Using Dialplan Functions: AES_DECRYPT() and AES_ENCRYPT()

I recently asked on twitter how many people would be interested in a set of blog posts that focused on how to use the various dialplan functions in Asterisk, and I got quite a positive response. I posted that shortly before getting married, and now that I’m back into the groove of things, I’m going to take a shot at posting a bunch of content focused around Asterisk dialplan functions. If you don’t know what Asterisk dialplan functions are, head on over to the online version of Asterisk: The Definitive Guide (3rd edition) (or buy it) and read the section on dialplan functions. Read On →

Asterisk 10 == Asterisk 1.^H^H10

In case you missed it, the next version of Asterisk is now in beta, and at the same time, has undergone a minor version numbering scheme. As it is unlikely that Asterisk will ever have a 2.0 release since for years now, that has generally meant Asterisk would undergo a major underlying change in both how it was programmed and the user experience (and since it would be a major disruption to the Asterisk community), it was deemed unnecessary to utilize the 1. Read On →

Set() and Goto() on same line

(Thanks to Jared Smith for answering my question in IRC which is the inspiration for this post.) Typically when I write dialplan, primarily in the case where I’m using a pattern match, I’ll save the dialed extension to a channel variable using Set(), then do a Goto() where the call logic is handled. The Set() is so that I don’t lose the value of ${EXTEN} throughout the dialplan process, especially if I’m using other mechanics such as GoSub() and others. Read On →

Connecting two conferences on initial join (with cleanup)

Update 2011/12/15: Updated the code to deal with a couple of people joining at about the same time by using GROUP() and GROUP_COUNT(). Additionally updated the ‘h’ extension which was missing some code For the last week or so at work, people have been saying, “Hey, I can’t join the conference call this morning because I’m driving but I can’t call into the conference room on that server”. There are really a couple solutions to the problem, 1) everyone should use the conference room that is accessible via the PSTN, 2) get the IT staff to allow PSTN access to the internal conference room. Read On →

LeifMadsen Enterprises, Inc. enters its 7th year of operation!

On this day in 2005, LeifMadsen Enterprises, Inc. was formally registered as an incorporation by the government of Canada! I’ve now been consulting on Asterisk professionally for over 6 years full time (and a few years before that!). I graduated from the telecommuncations technology program at Sheridan Institute of Technology in 2004. In that time I’ve spoken at every AstriCon since 2004 (the first one), and have helped write 4 books on the subject of Asterisk (The Future of Telephony 1st, 2nd editions, The Definitive Guide 3rd edition, Cookbook). Read On →

Chopsticks Played On The Phone

As I haven’t updated my blog in a while (been very busy with wedding planning!) I thought I’d share this with you :) Enjoy! http://www.break.com/index/chopsticks-played-on-phone.html

Asterisk 1.8 And The Importance Of Looking Ahead

With the end of maintenance for the Asterisk 1.4 (the previous long term support (LTS) release) and Asterisk 1.6.2 (the previous standard, short term support release) branches, the time to look at using Asterisk 1.8 (the next long term support release, which provides another 4 years of maintenance, followed by a year of security support) is upon us. For those who have successful deployments of Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6.2 (heck, even 1. Read On →