RasterWeb!

They used to be called cell phones, but I think now they are called mobile phones, or wireless phones or something. Phones are the new thing. No, I’m not Russell Beattie, and I keep saying I’m not a phone dork, but we’ll see how things go…

First some history… We (meaning the female and I) got our first cell phone in 1996, we had crummy vehicles, and a child on the way, and I got a very good deal through my employer. (As you know, I’m cheap.) It worked for about 4 years before it didn’t seem to function properly. (Why is that?) It was an NEC phone, and it was nice at the time, had an alarm clock and such, nothing too fancy, it was 1996.

Then in 2000 we got a Motorola StarTac, which at the time was tiny. Size was one of the main factors in choosing it. Well, that and I got it through my employer for $20. (Again, I’m cheap.) It worked for a few years, though the battery went poo-poo, I replaced it and that one lasted about a year. (Ok, I found out that the old analog phones chew through batteries much faster.) The StarTac sort of sucked, no features at all (not even a clock!) but it was small. I’ll be glad to stop using it.

Now that it’s 2004 and everyone over the age of 13 10 has a phone, we figured it was time to get a new one. Actually the female needs one for her business, and well, I’ll be getting one for when the car we got in 1996 leaves me stranded in rural Wisconsin.

The female got the Nokia 6585. First impressions: Small! It’s seriously tiny! I don’t think people with bad eyesight and large fingers/hands could ever use this thing. Besides the size, there’s a lot to learn. It’s got a calendar, and holds contacts, and has a radio, and accepts text messages… She’s got one of those zillion minutes plans with free incoming calls and nights and weekends. It should suit her quite well.

I’m still working out the details of the phone I’ll be getting. I actually do not plan on making/taking a lot of calls, and I’m going with a pre-paid phone. It looks like it will accept text messages, and that incoming text messages are free.

Let me say that again: Incoming text messages are free, and can be sent via email. Let the hacking begin!

(To Be Contined… Obviously!)

As mentioned previously, I’ve installed Asterisk and started testing it out to see what it could do, and I now have a phone system in my home. You can call the basement office at 776, or the upstairs office at 777. Xten’s X-Lite is running as the softphone. (Though I think the little iMac in the upstairs office could use a bit more RAM.)

Right now it “works” and that’s all I’ll say. I haven’t done anything fancy yet. Performance isn’t great, but we’re running Asterisk on a medium-powered Linux box, and as mentioned the iMac is a little underpowered. The G4 seems to work well though, and I’ve also got Asterisk running on an old G3, though that box hasn’t been stressed much yet.

I told everyone in the house that they could call me, and leave a voicemail and I’d get it as an email. I don’t think they were terribly impressed, but then, it’s the mom and kids, not an O’Reilly conference.

It’s all so very exciting. If you’re into that whole computer, phone, VoIP, talking thing…

In Linux Under the Desktop I mentioned one way Linux can creep into the enterprise. Here’s another: Asterisk.

Yes, Asterisk is one of those things some people might consider a “killer app” for Linux. Ok, it runs on Mac OS X as well, but Windows support just ain’t there, so if you want Asterisk running now, you’re looking at a *nix solution…

And I know at least one company full of Windows servers who is willing to stick a Linux box in the mix just for Asterisk.

So to me, this looks like one of those “foot in the door” opportunities for Linux. I’ll be interesting to see what happens…

I mentioned that my ISP is less than reliable, so what is a geek to do? Write code…

The sample, a work in progress, is the Connection Report, which should show the result of pinging my ISP’s server each day. The presentation needs some serious hacking, but like I said, it’s a work in progress.

I’m using Net::Ping to do this. I was using nmap, but Net::Ping was a little easier to deal with.