One can only handle seeing mice all over the counters, furniture, and food for so long. After three months of sitting around and indirectly providing only smart mice for natural selection to the mouse population did I decide there had to be a better way. After all was said and done, we bumped up the catch rate from 6 mice in the first three months, to 58 in the remaining 6 months. The trap was so inexpensive and effective, I was going to patent it until I realized that to do so was around $7,000. Anyways, if you want to catch mice 1000x quicker and more effectively than just using regular glue traps you need to make just one simple change. Make an enclosure out of a used cardboard box and immediately make a better mouse trap!

Best mouse trap

From the picture above, you can see its nothing more than a cardboard box with the bottom of the box cut off making it have a total of 5 sides instead of six. There are then two holes made (on opposing sides), that are opposite each other. The key to this box is the cardboard flap which allow the bait to be suspended above the glue trap.

This is what the enclosure looks like

The dotted line is where you place the glue trap. The premise is that the mouse will enter the enclosure after smelling the peanut butter which is applied on the flap suspended above the glue trap. The mouse will attempt to jump or stretch to reach the bait, and inadvertently step or fall onto the glue trap. My finding is that this works extremely well, however, during the first week, there was little success. It wasn’t until the second week sometime and after reapplying peanut butter two times did the trap really start catching mice. I found that the oils from the peanut butter soaked into the top of the box drying out the peanut butter. It wasnt until the third application where the box then smelt entirely of peanut butter (increasing the draw for the mouse to enter), and where I no longer needed to reapply the peanut butter because of it drying out. In fact, I only occasionally needed to reapply the bait as the box now smelling of peanut butter was really attractive to the mice.

In this particular photo, we caught all these mice in one day.

I also believe the size of the box makes a difference in relation to the glue trap. There might need to be empty space around the trap inside the enclosure, and just enough space above the glue trap for the flap to hang down where the mouse still has to stretch and reach for the bait. I believe the original box I had used was a size of 7.5″ x 5″ x 3.75.” The glue traps were about 4″ x 3.5.”

I also experimented with other types of traps to see if I could figure out why this trap was better than others…

I tried to replicate the concept of the enclosure without the enclosure.

In the photo above, I tried to see if the bait suspended above the trap would still work without the enclosure. After a few weeks, we were only able to capture one young mouse and I chalked it up to a failure. The lesson I learned was there was something involved in the enclosure which provided a sense of security or helped relax the mouse enough for it to enter (possibly because it was dark inside the box further concealing the trap, and they could see an exit on the other side of the entrance which gave them assurance of an escape route), and I believe coupled with the super saturated smell of the peanut butter (from the oils soaking into the box), it provided enough oomph for the mouse to be baited.

I mentioned previously that I wanted to patent this mouse trap, but who would buy a trap that was just a cut-up box? Well, I had to get a little bit more creative and came up with the idea of an enclosure with an integrated glue trap which could be folded up for sale, and “popped” back into form when ready for deployment. The top portion of the box would open and allow for the bait to be applied onto the flap. The trap would be made entirely of some recycled cardboard, and allow for easy disposal should a mouse be caught. One wouldnt have to even see the mouse or touch anything except the enclosure once the mouse was caught.

My idea for a fully enclosed disposable glue trap complete with handle and sticky trap for easy deployment and disposal.

If you have any questions, or even want to know more about this mouse trap, let me know. Being that i submitted a provisional patent which I let expire, I dont believe this idea can be patented any longer. Therefore, why not put it on the internet! Enjoy!

P.S. If you happen to make this trap and have success, please send me pictures and write me a note!

In your voicemail.conf file use the line below to get asterisk to run esmtp as root even when started by a boot script. Be sure to replace the exact directory location of esmtp/sendmail with yours.

mailcmd=su -c “/opt/bin/esmtp -t -f your@email.com”

You could also replace the command with the sendmail equivalent since esmtp mimics sendmail to a certain degree. The command I listed isnt rocket science, but i just didnt know enough about linux to actually implement it correctly in the voicemail.conf file. Hopefully this helps someone figure out why asterisk will not send emails with the voicemail as an attachment unless run manually via command line and not by a boot script.

After the month of anti-biotics, my face and chest had never looked better, my pores were open and my pimples were gone. I was finally back to my old self — pimple free. Ive never really had any issues with acne, even as a teen…well not acne that would be considered out of the norm, so when all this started to hit me after I turned 29 I was surprised and to say the least, a bit unnerved. After the month supply ran out, I went back to the dermatologist for the doctor check-up to look at my healing abscess and to see how the rest of my skin was doing. She then prescribed me all sorts of meds to handle the acne should it reoccur. This is what she gave me:

-Duac Topical Gel
-Retin A Micro
-Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash
-NeoBenz Micro Wash

So I went home assured that I was ready to keep the pimples at bay should they ever show their “face” again ha ha. Well, two weeks later, my face was breaking out, my pores were all clogged, red, and rashy, and it felt like I was going to get another friggin abcess. So rather than let all that happen, I started applying everything the doctor gave me but the Retin A micro. It just freaked out my skin and made it all go bonkers. My skin started to look like it was being run through a chemical bath. Back to the dermatologist I went, and again she gave me more doxycycline but in less potent dosage. I was beginning to understand that fighting acne was more art than science, and seemed like dermatologists like to shoot from the hip by first prescribing a cure-all such as doxycycline, and then other junk to see if it can control the acne.

I was getting somewhat desperate, because none of the stuff was helping my face and each visit to the dermatologist cost me money…Then it hit me. Why didnt i try and figure out why I had acne and what was causing it in the first place? Why didnt I use the same type of thinking that I normally do with everything and be cheap and just do it myself. So this blog post is about how I cured myself of acne and should have done it before I went to the doctors in order to save me money. Hopefully this helps you as well.

So, I sat down and started to research and just read as much as I could. Acne could be caused by genes, stress, diet, environment, etc…basically everything. Well, I knew I never had problems with it in the past, so I started to think about what may have been causing it to happen in the first place. I realized that ever since I turned 27-28, Ive been getting more and more dandruff…not bad dandruff, but flaking nontheless. So along with this dandruff, I remembered using anti-dandruff shampoos. Namely head and shoulders, pert plus, and was currently using selson blue (none of them helping but I was still hopeful). I began to research and learned that anti-dandruff shampoos like to mess with your internal hormones and like most other soaps, facewashes, shampoos, and things that lather, contain something called sodium lauryl sulfate…basically a commercial lathering agent.

I decided if I was going to troubleshoot my situation I would need to start a baseline and slowly introduce factors which may lead to the problem. I was going to cut out all types of chemical weird stuff and go “granola.” My wifes coworker also told her about using vinegar as shampoo by mixing 20% vinegar with 80% water. I researched this and found that lots of people actually do this but prefer to use apple cider vinegar instead. Along with using this new apple cider shampoo, I needed a face wash (I was using cetaphil at the time, but it seemed to do nothing at all to help my condition), and learned that this shampoo would be great as a facewash as well! Its cheap, I can make it myself, and best of all, it doesnt contain much if any chemicals.

So heres what I did…I started with a clean slate by taking the new prescription of doxycycline and getting my face as cleared up as it could be (the doxycycline kills bacterial infections on the skin which cause pimples). At the same time, I started my granola regimen with the ACV and used only that to wash my face and shampoo my hair. After 2 months of using the vinegar mixture as a facewash and as a shampoo, my pores stayed open and my acne started to go away. The only place I had pimples was around my mouth area from udner my nose and above my chin. This was a marked improvement, as before, pimples would be everywhere on my face so I knew something was working.

I couldnt understand why pimples were only appearing in that certain area till I started realizing that my pimples would flare up a few days after I shaved. I was using an electric shaver which vibrated as it cut the hairs on my face. Maybe this was causing it somehow? I swapped it out for my wifes disposable leg shaving razors and after two weeks, I had no more new pimples. Was it really my dandruff shampoo causing my face to break out? Was my shaver causing my face to break out as well? The answer after months of battling this acne was YES.

I think what happened was as I aged, my body became increasingly sensitive to the chemicals contained in the products that I had been using without a problem for so long. It wasnt like i was really doing anything different, but my body was slowly getting more sensitive and irritated by what I was using. My friend who also had an issue with this instead just took accutane and it cleared up her acne as well, but I decided to try a more natural way vs taking something as potent as that.

Anyways, washing hair with vinegar sucks, it doesnt lather, it smells like butt, and its just plain gross (although the smell is gone once its washed off). I needed to get a shampoo that I could use, and figured I should get something natural and didnt contain SLS, so I found one at walgreens for 8 bucks. I wanted to make sure it was actually the chemicals causing my acne from the shampoo, so I just got a cheap one without SLS and without the chemicals contained in the anti-dandruff shampoos. After using it for over 9 months now, I can honestly say that using shampoos without SLS has been so much better for me.

When I was using shampoos WITH SLS I didnt realize it was causing my eyes to itch and made me sneeze everytime I got out of the shower. I never realized it till I used shampoo without SLS. So after using it for a while, I knew it was my anti-dandruff shampoo that was causing my face to go bonkers because my acne never returned. Im not sure if it screwed my hormones like I learned anti-dandruff shampoos could do, or if it was just an irritant, but I dont care to find out. Im also very happy that im not suffering from any type of irritation caused by Sodium Lauryl Sulfate/Sodium Laureth Sulfate. My dandruff is still there, but I would much rather have the little unseen flakes compared to another friggin huge abscess.

So to summarize what to do if you have acne and you are trying to figure out how to get rid of it, Follow these steps below (YMMV):

1. Stop using shampoos with Sodium Laryl Sulfate or Sodium Lareth Sulfate.
2. Stop using anti-dandruff shampoos immediately (they only cause problems)
3. Stop using an electric shaver on your face (the vibration really irritates the skin and caused me pimples)
4. Stop using any prescribed acne medication or facewash (unless your dermatologist says you need it for a medical reason) no matter how gentle it says it is (I used cetaphil, and it gave me trouble – it also had SLS in it)
5. Buy Apple Cider Vinegar at a grocery store, and get an empty water bottle. Mix 20% ACV to 80% water. Use this as a shampoo and facewash for 2 months.
6. Once youve found that you dont have new acne, you may try introducing a new shampoo without SLS into the mix so you dont have to use ACV as a shampoo anymore. But keep using the ACV as a facewash (im still currently using it with better results than any other facewash ive used)
7. Test SLS-Free shampoo for a week. if you see no ill results, continue using it.

This should work for people who were in the same situation as I was, where doxycycline cured the acne, but the acne reoccured after a week or two. One might need an initial consultation with a dermatologist to get a prescription of doxycycline in order to kill the bacterial infection which is causing the acne in the first place before they can start the granola treatment above. I believe I had to stop the bacterial infection on my skin causing the acne first, in order to reset my skin back to normal before I truly found out what it was that was causing my acne.

So to summarize, create a baseline and get rid of any artificial products that could create clogged pores/alter hormones which in turn facilitates the growth of bacteria which causes acne. Once you have that baseline, slowly introduce products till you see which one is causing it. But if anything eliminate SLS from your skin products as much as possible. Im pretty sure you will see a difference like I did.

Disclaimer – As always, this information is what worked for me and may or not work for you. I make no legal claims or anything of the sort that this will cure you of your acne, and I can not be held liable for any health issues that arise out of the suggestions above.

All the rage in the VOIP world is the Obihai obi110 voice gateway device, and while due largely to its native integration of google voice, I believe it’s because it does quite a bit for a very reasonable cost. And while just good news for asterisk 1.8 users, this is great news for asterisk 1.4 and 1.6 users! The Obi110 is essentially a user friendly linksys spa-3102 with a slightly watered down interface, with the addition of native google voice support (and setup wizards!). It is somewhat less capable in functionality (no router feature, or independent trunking capabilities with asterisk, etc.) but for my purposes, I decided to give it a try to see if I could replace my spa-3102 and found out that it could quite easily.

The obi110

I have a simple asterisk 1.4 based setup with several extensions located around the world. The main goal is for my family to connect to my system using their iphones, computers, voip devices and make calls to the US and also to receive calls with local DID numbers to their extensions. My previous setup with the linksys spa-3102 allowed them to use my ooma device to call out as an outgoing trunk, however I wanted to see if I could add two trunks to my setup and give my users the flexibility of outgoing call redundancy if they so desired (choose to call out through GV or my Ooma).

Below is my guide for setting this up.

Pre-requisites:
-Network connectivity to the obi110 and ability to administer its local web admin page and setup through obitalk.com.
-Physically connected pstn service (ooma, telco) to the obi110 local Line port (Note: if line port is disconnected, the obi110 will report the lines as busy even if just calling out through GV when the SP2 local dialplan shown below is specified).
-Newest version of firmware on the obi110 (as of 03/21/11 version 1.1.0 (Build: 1892))

Configuration:
I found that it is much simpler to initially set up the obi110 through the obitalk.com portal and then to disable auto-provisioning and make customized changes to the web admin afterwards.

Google Voice Trunk setup – obitalk.com portal
1. Goto obi110 device portal after you have successfully registered your hardware to your user account on obitalk.com
2. Configure Voice services for Service Provider 1 and select Google voice
3. Enter in your google voice email and password.
4. Make sure to put a checkmark to make this provider the default Line to call out.
5. Click submit and wait for your ob110 to reboot

Google Voice Service provider 1 Trunk

Asterisk Trunk setup - obitalk.com portal
1. While still logged into the Obitalk portal, configure the Voice service for Service Provider 2 as a generic service provider (this will essentially act as an extension to asterisk)
2. Enter in your asterisk server information
3. Click submit and wait for the obi110 to reboot.

Asterisk Service provider 2 Trunk

Configure Dialplan on Obi110 device and disable Auto Provisioning
Thats all there is to setting up obi110 trunks! Couldnt be easier right? Now for the small dialplan customizations to make the incoming and outgoing calls route properly.

1. Log into your obi110 device through its web admin (enter in the devices IP address in a web browser. default user/pass is admin/admin)
2. Disable Auto-Provisioning by expanding the System Management Tree on the left pane, then clicking on the Auto Provisioning link and set the Auto Provisioning Method to Disabled. Click submit and reboot (if not disabled, your changes will get overwritten).
3. Expand the Voice Services Tree to the left and click on the SP1 Service link
4. Under X_InboundCallRoute enter in SP2 and click on submit (this routes all calls coming in from GV to your asterisk extension).

Service Provider 1 Local Dialplan

5. Under the Voice Services Tree to the left, click on the SP2 Service link
6. Under X_InboundCallRoute enter in {>(xxx xxx xxxx):sp1},{>(1xxx xxx xxxx):li1}  and click on submit

Service Provider 2 Local Dialplan

The above line in Step 6 routes any 10 digit calls out through GV (configured as SP1), and any 11 digit calls starting with 1 out through the local line port…In my case, through my ooma device). The reason you will need to do this is because unlike the spa-3102, there is no seperate interfacing for asterisk to trunk to the different Service providers which the obi110 can be configured. Instead, asterisk needs to send the dialed number in a way where the obi110 can then determine to which interface it will send its calls. In this case, I will have asterisk format the numbers to be only 10 digits if a user wants to call out through GV, and append a 1 to the 10 digit number if the user wants to call out through my ooma. Once asterisk does this and sends the number to the obi110, the obi110 will then direct the call accordingly depending on if there is a 1 in front of the number – a little hurdle, but easy enough to work around.

Double checking your Asterisk configuration settings
1. Under the Service Providers Tree to the left, click on the ITSP Profile B link
2. Make sure the settings are correct for the SIP and RTP sections. Most likely you will have to modify your RTP LocalPortMin and LocalPortMax settings to match your current asterisk RTP port range.

Thats all there is to configuring your local OBi110 device. The next steps are just to configure asterisk with the user you specified in the obitalk.com service provider 2 settings, and to create a dialplan which handles the numbers so that obi110 can route the calls appropriately.

Below is my user configuration for asterisk 1.4 so that the Obi110 can register to it. ‘gvtrunk’ is my username and ‘password’ is the password which I specified in my Service Provider 2 setup on the obitalk.com portal. Place this in your sip.conf or users.conf file.

[gvtrunk]
username = gvtrunk
fromuser = gvtrunk
secret = password
type = friend
disallow = all
allow = ulaw
allow = alaw
allow = gsm
context = gv-in
host = dynamic

Next we have to edit our extensions.conf file and to tell asterisk what to do with our calls. Below, any call the user makes whether be it 1XXX-XXX-XXXX or XXX-XXX-XXXX will be routed out to the obi110 and then through google voice. This is because I have asterisk removing the 1 digit the user has dialed so that the obi110 dialplan will route the 10 digit number to GV.

In this dialplan I also have any number with a 9 dialed before it sent out to the obi110 as a 1XXX-XXX-XXXX number. If the user has dialed a 9XXX-XXX-XXXX number without the 1, asterisk will append the 1 in front of the number to make it an 11 digit number so that the obi110 can route the call through the local line port (and out through my ooma).

_XXXX is needed because my internal extension numbers are 4 digits long. I need this so that any numbers longer than 4 digits go out appropriately and are not seen as internal extensions.

[ob110-out]
;make outgoing calls to gvtrunk with 10 digit dialing
exten => _XXXX.,1,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN}@gvtrunk,20)
exten => _XXXX.,n,Hangup()
exten => _XXXX.,n,Congestion
;make outgoing calls to gvtrunk with 11 digit dialing
exten => _1XXXX.,1,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN:1}@gvtrunk,20)
exten => _1XXXX.,n,Hangup()
exten => _1XXXX.,n,Congestion
;make outgoing calls to gvtrunk through ooma with 10 digit dialing
exten => _9XXXX.,1,Set(CHEXTEN=${EXTEN:1})
exten => _9XXXX.,n,Dial(SIP/1${CHEXTEN}@gvtrunk,20)
exten => _9XXXX.,n,Hangup()
exten => _9XXXX.,n,Congestion
;make outgoing calls to gvtrunk through ooma with 11 digit dialing
exten => _91XXXX.,1,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN:1}@gvtrunk,20)
exten => _91XXXX.,n,Hangup()
exten => _91XXXX.,n,Congestion

How to handle inbound calls from GV with Asterisk
The last thing we need to do is tell asterisk how to handle inbound calls from Google Voice. In my user setup above, I specified gv-in as the user context. This just tells asterisk where to go and how to handle the incoming calls from the obi110 device. Place this in your extensions.conf file and modify it accordingly.

[gv-in]
exten = s,1,answer
exten = s,n,wait(1)
exten = s,n,Dial(SIP/4000,20)
exten = s,n,wait(1)
exten = s,n,Voicemail(4000,u)
exten = s,n,Hangup

Above, I have all calls from GV calling my extension 4000. Just change it to your desired extension.

Thats all there is to it. It may look complicated, but the dirty work is done for you…Enjoy!

Cisco 79xx IP Phone

In fact, Cisco phones are simple. They just need a tftp server to update its firmware and it doesnt even have to be located on the asterisk/phone system itself. 7940/60 Cisco phones update in two stages. The bootloader, then the application. Once the bootloader is upgraded, all passwords and networking information on the phone will be wiped out. But what is essential in upgrading these phones is a DHCP server with option 150 enabled – an option to auto-provision the tftp server ip address when the DHCP server hands out the regular ip address to the phone.
Without an auto-provisioned tftp server address, the phone will only complete half the upgrade and come up with an error message of “protocol application invalid.” This just means that the phone could not complete the second half of the upgrade and needs the tftp ip address to be specified. Only problem is since there is no application running, there is no place to specify the address! Thank goodness for DHCP option 150 which does this for us when the phone grabs an IP address after loading the bootloader.

Below are instructions to upgrade/convert any Cisco 7940, 7941, 7960, 7961, 7970, 7971, 7942, 7962, 7945, 7965 IP phone to any firmware you want from the Cisco web site (SIP/SCCP), and to recover any cisco phone which may have screwed up somehow while upgrading firmware (like if you get the protocol application invalid message).

Step 1: Download Cisco phone firmware
Cisco may require you to have a smartnet contract before you download the firmware, but if you do not have one, there are firmware files available on the internet. Ive provided two sources below (If you cant find any after looking, for a donation I may be able to get what you need).

a. Goto http://www.cisco.com/ and create a login if you do not already have one. Download the firmware for the specific phone you are using. (if cisco doesnt allow you to download the firmware, check here: ftp://ftp.itl.ua/pub/cisco/ip-7900ser/ or http://radiotwenterand.nl/~graver/cisco/SIP-7960/ for phone firmware).

b. Download the .zip file and extract it to a directory. If you are downloading an older version of the SIP/SCCP firmware and it only comes in a .cop file extension. Just rename the extension to .tar.gz and extract it to a directory using winzip or winrar.

Extracted files in a folder

You will have several files in this directory. If you just have one, you must remember to extract all the files.

Step 2: Download and configure the DHCP/TFTP server
We are going to use a windows based machine and load tftp/dhcp software on it which will make our windows machine a server for our phones.

a. Go here to download the tftp/dhcp server – http://tftpd32.jounin.net/
Download and install version 3.23 (<–YOU MUST DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THIS VERSION. I have had many people complaining about their phones not obtaining a correct ip address and also the files not being sent correctly. Every one of these problems was due to using the incorrect version and/or having their firewall on).

b. You will also have to configure your windows machine to use ip address of 192.168.1.1 and subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.
Youll configure this tftp server to host the upgrade files via tftp server (theres an option to configure the working directory in the program to use for the stored firmware files on the windows machine – this must be set correctly!).

c. Under DHCP server within the tftp32 program, enter the following and click SAVE:

-IP pool starting address as 192.168.1.2
-Size of pool as 250 (if doing multiple phones, this just makes sure your phones are able to receive an ip address)
-Default router as 192.168.1.1
-Mask as 255.255.255.0
-Additional option, enter 150 in the first box, then 0x0101A8C0  in the second box (this number is 192.168.1.1  in Hexadecimal).

TFTP example

3. Putting it all together

a. Now, there are a few things to consider when upgrading 7940/7960 cisco phones (these steps below dont apply to the 79×1/79×2/79×5 java based phones, if you have one of these, just do steps d. and e.). But the rule of thumb, is that if you have SCCP on your phone youll need to use a XMLDefault.cnf.xml file to specify the firmware load information tag by which the phone can know what load it should install. For the rest of this guide I will just assume you want to convert SCCP to SIP.

b. The easiest way to get SIP on your phone is to install a universal application bootloader. Ive found that SCCP version 8.0.9 (P00308000900) has the most compatible loader which easily allows swapping between current SIP and SCCP loads without a hitch. So the best thing to do is to upgrade your SCCP phone with a newer SCCP load before switching over to SIP. If you have a very old version of SCCP, you will find that you cannot immediately upgrade to this version. If that is the case, just load version 3 (P00303010102), then load to version 5 (P00305000500), then jump to version 8.0.9 (P00308000900). To do this you have to download those firmware versions and just extract them all into one directory.

c. Now download and place this file into your firmware directory. XMLDefault.cnf.xml (right click on link…’save target as’ – this file contains the text below)

<Default>
<callManagerGroup>
<members>
<member priority=”0″>
<callManager>
<ports>
<ethernetPhonePort>2000</ethernetPhonePort>
<mgcpPorts>
<listen>2427</listen>
<keepAlive>2428</keepAlive>
</mgcpPorts>
</ports>
<processNodeName></processNodeName>
</callManager>
</member>
</members>
</callManagerGroup>
<loadInformation>SCCP40.8-3-1S</loadInformation>
<authenticationURL></authenticationURL>
<directoryURL></directoryURL>
<idleURL></idleURL>
<informationURL></informationURL>
<messagesURL></messagesURL>
<servicesURL></servicesURL>
</Default>

After you have downloaded the file, edit the loadInformation tag within the XMLDefault.cnf.xml file with the firmware you want to install on your phone. Do not add the file name extension, just the name of the file (ig. <loadInformation>P00308000500</loadInformation>). Save and proceed to the next step.

d. Next plug in the phone by crossover cable or ethernet switch to the computer you are running this server from (make sure you disconnect any device attached to the network which resolves an ip through dhcp, as this will conflict with any other dhcp server on the network).

e. Power Cycle the phone and clear the configuration by holding down the # key and then plugging in the phone. After all the lights cycle on the phone, release the # key and press 123456789*0# followed with the 2 key (if you are using a 79×1, 79×2, 79×5, 7970 phone, plug the phone in and hold the # key till the extension lights blink amber…then press 3491672850*#. The lights will turn red, but if they dont, repeat this step. The phone will then wipe the flash and load whatever firmware is specified in the tftpd32 directory – if the phone just keeps downloading the term.defaults file constantly, just do an incremental upgrade to the firmware version that you want).

This will clear all settings on the phone and set it to defaults. Upon reboot, the phone will grab an ip address from the dhcp server on the windows machine running the dhcp server. Tftpd32 will also assign an ip address for the tftp server to the phone using option 150, and the phone should start pulling down files from the server after it obtains an ip address.

f. If you are doing an incremental upgrade to get to version 8.0.9, just keep editing the XMLDefault.cnf.xml file with the next version of firmware and save, then reboot the phone (after it has completed loading both the bootloader and application). The phone should find that it needs to upgrade itself until you stop editing the file with new firmware information.

g. After the phone gets to SCCP version 8.0.9, all you have to do is just download the version of SIP firmware you want, and then extract it into a seperate directory. Point the tftpd32 program to use that directory, copy the XMLDefault.cnf.xml file to that directory and edit the loadInformation tag with the POS-xxx filename which is located in that directory and  reboot the phone. The phone will automatically switch over to loading the SIP firmware.

You can check the events viewer within tftpd32 to ensure that the phone is grabbing the necessary files and getting an ip address. The 79×1/79×2/79×5/7970 phones take a bit longer to fully complete the flashing process since they use more numerous and larger files than the 7940/60 series phones. If the phones just sit like they arent doing anything, wait a bit longer and they should come back up. Its not uncommon for one phone to take up to 4-5 minutes to complete the entire process.

Thats all there is to it, and now that the phone has a good universal application bootloader, you will have no trouble switching between SCCP and SIP by just pointing the phone to the appropriate directory.

If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message on my contact page. If you get really stuck I can also provide these services remotely.

Linksys SPA-942

Asterisk does not easily work with shared line appearances unless the phones are made specifically for it. However, you should be able to get BLF working instead of SLA and have almost the same functionality. Below is what you will need to do to enable BLF on asterisk 1.4 using a linksys spa942 (this should also work on any Linksys/Sipura Phone that supports BLF and extended functions).

Edit your SIP.CONF file and enable these features (these MUST be enabled for hints to work correctly):

allowsubscribe=yes
limitonpeers=yes
notifyringing=yes
notifyhold=yes

In your SIP.CONF/USERS.CONF file, edit your users to contain the following code:

qualify=yes (im not sure this is necessary as I tested it without this setting and BLF still functioned correctly)
call-limit=100 (this can be anything, but 100 will keep you from denying any new calls)

In your EXTENSIONS.CONF file, you just have to enable hints by putting this in your default context (change the extension numbers with your extension numbers):

exten => 1000,hint,SIP/1000
exten => 2000,hint,SIP/2000
exten => 3000,hint,SIP/3000
exten => 4000,hint,SIP/4000

This enables BLF on your asterisk server. In order to configure your linksys spa-942, all you have to do is enter a few settings on the phone itself. But you must be sure you are currently running the newest version of the phones firmware (it is currently at 6.1.5(a)), BLF will not work without first running the newest firmware release! After you have confirmed this, use your web browser and enter the ip adrress of your phone. Click on admin login and then on advanced.

Under the Phone tab type the following:

Short Name: Anything you want to show up next to the LED to remind you which line it is you are monitoring.
Extended Function: fnc=blf+sd+cp;sub=5000@$PROXY;ext=5000@$PROXY 

Just enter the line under extended function

 Above, I have two extensions; 5000 and 6000 which I am monitoring which show up on my phone line buttons 2 and 3. After these settings are entered, scroll down to Line Key Extended Function and enter these settings:

Line Key Extended Functions

Server Type: Asterisk (*this is important!).

You do not have to enable line keys in the Ext. tabs  for this to work. Just click ‘submit all’ and wait for the phone to reboot. Youre done! Hopefully this will save someone lots of time searching google for consolidated information!

While my family uses this setup, I often wondered the details of the calls made out through my Ooma device. Sure I could log into my.ooma.com or even check the asterisk call logs, but it wasnt as neat/tidy or as automated as I would have liked. I snooped around and discovered that Asterisk can run system commands when they are specified in the extensions.conf file!

I scoured the internet for instructions and realized the lack of a good guide for asterisk 1.4 when using sendmail (this guide should work for msmtp as well), so I thought i would share.

Below is my dialplan for sending an email alert when a call is placed through to my ooma device. This can be placed in any dialplan where you would like an email alert to be made to you, so the possibilities are endless!

While many guides are written for use with the linux mail application which can allow for the subject and body to be specified by the command line, I was using sendmail which does not allow for the subject or body to be specified by command line (except using echo statements in a way which asterisk could not duplicate while running from a dialplan ig. (cat > text | echo xxx ; echo xxx ; | sendmail) etc.). Sendmail needs certain variables to be specified in a file, or by running the application and specifying it while it is running.

I found that asterisk would need to create the file dynamically and add the To:, Subject:, and Body text variables before Asterisk/Sendmail would send the customized email that I wanted sent.

*Note: For this to work, you must have sendmail already configured and able to send emails.

[ooma-out]
;make outgoing calls to ooma pstn
exten => _XXXX.,1,System(echo “To: putdestinationemail@here.com” > /opt/etc/init.d/calls)
exten => _XXXX.,n(done),NoOp()
exten => _XXXX.,n,System(echo “Subject: [PBX]: Outgoing call through Ooma” >> /opt/etc/init.d/calls)
exten => _XXXX.,n(done),NoOp()
exten => _XXXX.,n,System(echo “” >> /opt/etc/init.d/calls)
exten => _XXXX.,n(done),NoOp()
exten => _XXXX.,n,System(echo “User ${CALLERID(NUM)} has made an outgoing call through ooma to phone number ${EXTEN} on ${STRFTIME(%C%m%d%y%H%M)}” >> /opt/etc/init.d/calls)
exten => _XXXX.,n(done),NoOp()
exten => _XXXX.,n,System(sendmail -t -f putsendingemail@here.com < /opt/etc/init.d/calls)
exten => _XXXX.,n(done),NoOp()
exten => _XXXX.,n,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN}@pstn,20)
exten => _XXXX.,n,Hangup
exten => _XXXX.,n,Congestion

exten => _XXXX., is used instead of exten => s,n, because I wanted to have any number larger than 4 digits routed out through ooma, since my internal extensions are 4 digits long.
exten => _XXXX.,n,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN}@pstn,20) is my command to send the call out through ooma.

This configuration makes a file located in /opt/etc/init.d called “calls” containing:

To: putdestinationemail@here.com
Subject: [PBX]: Outgoing call through Ooma
User EXTENTIONCALLING has made an outgoing call through ooma to phone number NUMBERCALLED on DATE

The email is sent to the email specified in “putdestinationemail@here.com” from email address specified in putsendingemail@here.com

This dialplan can be customized to suit any email alert you may need to send when placed into any dialplan in the extensions.conf file, so have fun!

I freaked out for a moment as I believed there was no way to recover ssh access…until I thought about it some more. Below are the steps to recover SSH access to your pogoplug running openpogo if you somehow disabled hbmgr.sh on startup:

This procedure will work with pogoplugs running openpogo, not sure if it will work for units NOT running openpogo since openpogo searches the opt/etc/init.d directory on startup to start any other scripts on boot.

PREP:
-power off the pogoplug
-download a linux live distro. Any modern live distro will do, knoppix, slitaz, ubuntu, etc.
-burn distro to cd
-boot off linux live cd
-plug in HD from pogoplug into the computer now running linux

ACCESS the HD:

-mount hard drive (you might have to open up gparted to see what device your HD is coming up as)
-start terminal
-access your hd mount
-do an ls -a (this command shows hidden files on the directory you are in. If you do not use the -a command, you will only see the directories you shared out through pogoplug).
-go into the /.opt/etc/init.d directory
-nano or vi a new file called S70ssh with ROOT permissions (otherwise you will not be able to write the file)

Enter in this line in the new file:

/etc/init.d/hbmgr.sh start

-save and exit
-chmod 777 the S70ssh file for good measure

FINISHING:
-Power down the linux system
-Plug the HD back into the Pogoplug and power cycle the unit.

After the unit restarts, the script should have run and started hbmgr.sh. Remember to delete the script S70ssh and make sure the /etc/init.d/hbmgr.sh start line is enabled or entered back into the rcS startup file.

I searched the strobist flikr discussions and other associated forums for a cheap solution, but didnt find a good DIY write-up…hence this post. 

The Westcott Apollo light modifier tilted down after using the simple setup

So if you want to allow the westcott apollo softbox to be used with a light stand and STILL be able to tilt it downward without any funky choking up on the post, and have the softbox be used the way it was meant to be, then continue reading! 

I. Parts Needed (3 total, all less than $10…no need for a hollywood arm or anything like that.)
LOWES (I got everything at Lowes since its just 5 minutes from my house):
- PN#136135 SS Wing Nuts 1/4-20 (QTY 2) – $1.21
- PN#64767 Mending Plate 8″ – $1.88 (this mending plate is very solid and will not bend or flex…HINT: if you want to increase the downard tilt even more, get a longer mending plate.) 

EBAY:
-5/8″ Spigot stud Adapter with 1/4″ & 3/8″ Male screw – $5.40 (the seller has since dropped the price to $4.90) 

Heres what the spigot stud adapter looks like. The ebay seller is also noted.

II. Assembly
To assemble, just stick one end of the lightstand in the hole at one end of the mending plate, then put the spigot adapter in the hole at the opposite end and secure both with wingnuts. EASY as pie! 

Wingnut securing the Spigot adapter using the 1/4" stud end.

Other end of the mending plate secured to the lightstand with a wingnut

What it looks like fully assembled.

III. Misc.
Here are more pictures of the softbox with hardware installed and working together. 

Dont need to choke up on the post to tilt it down now.

Heres a shot taken a bit farther back. You can see how the hardware allows the flash to be mounted farther forward which in turn allows the softbox to tilt downward.

The hardware mod still allows the Apollo Modifier to tilt upwards.

 The Hardware really holds together solidly and is very easy to set up. Im very happy with it, just be sure to use sandbags on the lightstand since the center of gravity is now slightly off!

After some searching, I found that plugbox linux changes up the boot parameters using blparam. I figured that the /sbin/reboot was indeed working fine, but it would just freak out when trying to check for installed linux kernels on attached USB storage devices upon reboot. Reverting to the original bootload parameter worked for me and fixed /sbin/reboot so I didnt have to power cycle the unit by physically pulling the plug.

I didnt find this command easily by searching how to fix a broken reboot command so I figured I would post it on my blog for others who may run into the same problem.

To fix /sbin/reboot, SSH into your device, enable rw access to the file system and enter in:

/usr/local/cloudengines/bin/./blparam ‘bootcmd=run bootcmd_original’

you should be able to issue an /sbin/reboot and have it reboot like normal!