Malcolm Davenport September 14th, 2007

Okay, this is sort of product related, but it’s also a bit on the fun side.

(this posting inspired by the shoutout Russell gave me on the commit list, detailed in this comment)

I like to listen to music, a lot (frequently), and a lot (quantity) of it.  I even started a Last.fm group that’s populated with some other Digium-ites including Josh Colp, Jason Parker, Russell Bryant, Matt Robinson, Mr. Kevin P. Fleming, and more.  Apparently our favorite artists right now are The Doors, Tool, The Cranberries and Kansas.  Myself, I’m apparently really into Peter Gabriel, Hed Kandi, George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Michael Jackson, Eels, ZZ Top, Paul Simon, and RATM.  Last.fm’s great.  And now, back to the point of this posting.

Having this great love of music, and having spent a number of years in the Sales department before I moved over to Marketing, I was constantly having to mute the music playing on my PC before I took or made a customer call.  Most of the time, I didn’t fail to mute the music.  Most of the time…

To remedy my oopsies, Mark wrote a little program for me called muted.  Muted can presently be found in the Asterisk source directory under the “utils” subdirectory.

What’s it do?

It connects across the Asterisk Management Interface (AMI), watches for any calls that get directed to my Polycom phone, and then mutes the main ALSA channel on my PC.

The music stops, I sound professional on the telephone, I hang up, and…the music returns.  Bliss.

• Products
• Comments(4)

roderickm September 13th, 2007

The first question we hear from visitors is invariably, “if you give away your software, how do you make money?” Good question, and one that presents a great opportunity to explore the challenges of being a truly open source company today. Mark’s ha-ha-only-serious answer is, “Any way we can.”

Continue Reading »

• ABE , Community
• Comments(1)

Jared Smith September 11th, 2007

It’s that time of the year… the hottest part of the summer is over, my kids are are back in school, and I find myself traveling more than usual. Between conferences and classes, I’m really racking up the frequent flier miles this month.

I spent last Friday and Saturday just south of Salt Lake City, Utah speaking at the Utah Open Source Conference. Both of my Asterisk sessions were very well attended, and I had some very productive meetings with the local Asterisk and Linux user groups. I brought along my little Asterisk Appliance to show off, and it was the star of the show!

This week I’m teaching an Asterisk Bootcamp in Montreal, Canada. Teaching the classes has always been a rewarding experience — Not only do I get to see students have those “eureka” moments, but I get to see what types of problems people have in setting up Asterisk, and try to get them fixed for the community at large. The Bootcamp classes tend to fill up quickly, so if you’re interested I strongly suggest you sign up as soon as you can. We have upcoming classes in Maryland, Kansas City, and Salt Lake City (as well as other locations around the globe). You can check out our full line-up here.

Last but not least, the end of the month will find me in sunny Phoenix, Arizona for the AstriCon conference. I always look forward to AstriCon, as it’s far and away my favorite conference of the year. It’s great to rub shoulders with the Asterisk community, and to make new contacts. I’ve been looking at the schedule for this year’s conference, and my only complaint is that I won’t be able to simultaneously attend all the different sessions. This year’s conference is at the Carefree Resort and Villas, and I’ve heard that the resort is filling up quickly, so my advice is to get signed up quickly. You can find more information and sign up at http://www.astricon.net/.

I hope to see you all at AstriCon!

• AstriCon , Community
• Comments(0)

beelinebill September 8th, 2007

When Mark Spencer sent out an email earlier last week announcing Friday was “casual day” there was quite a bit of buzz around. We had so many new folks this year, they had no idea what it really meant! A couple of folks from the marketing team knew exactly what it was: PJs, absolute casual; almost anything goes. Well, to our surprise, Mark showed up to a meeting in his penguin boxer shorts! Yet another day that falls into the category of, “you can’t make this stuff up!” I love my job. I love this place. Work hard. Play hard. Laugh hard! I took cell phone pictures and sent them to one of our executives who was in another location on the conference bridge. Response: SCARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you agree?

In this picture, Mark is teaching a class in Huntsville. People love Mark’s guest appearances in classes. He’s touching, entertaining, and aloof all in one. Yes, really! Throughout the day, people from sales, marketing, tech support and other departments came out of the woodwork for this event to see who was wearing what. Here is a picture of some of the fun folks.

It makes each and every day a blast to come to the office. It is what makes Digium what it is. Innovative, fun, collaborative. Unpredictable.

For new folks, its enlightening. For students in training, it is eye popping.

It was a very nice ending to the week!

………..submitted by Bill Miller

• Flip flops
• Comments(2)

markster September 6th, 2007

You know, I didn’t really start out on a mission to change the world, but more just seemed to stumble into it. When I started Digium (Linux Support Services at the time), it was just me. The mission was really about seeing what I could do. Then you start to add some people and it’s about what “we” can do. Before you know it though, there are so many people involved and then this whole world of people who have become involved with Asterisk both in terms of using it and developing for it and even businesses springing up all over the place to try to commercialize it. There’s a point at which it started to dawn on me just how much bigger than me all of this had become, and that my role is really to do whatever it takes to ensure the success of Asterisk, and hopefully that of Digium as well! Today, the future of Asterisk is not just about code, it’s about the audience. As the Asterisk developer team at Digium continues to grow, my mission is really two fold — one part technology roadmap, and one part advocation, and it may be surprising how those two can often intersect. When I go to trade shows like IT Expo, Astricon, and Digium/Asterisk World, each one plays a different role in that process.

As we enter each of these shows, it’s probably worth commenting a little about why the show is important, and then perhaps have a follow up from each. So lets start with IT Expo, since it’s the first one, starting just next week. There I’ll be trying to tell an audience who largely is used to traditional voice products (even “traditional VoIP” products you might say) and teaching them how they can translate this “Asterisk” buzzword they hear all the time into revenue generating business for them. In that process, it’s important not only to cover how Digium has packaged Asterisk to make it easier for them, but to learn what things we need to keep doing to make it even easier, and to learn what both the customers and the channel need.

• Community , Tradeshows
• Comments(0)