It’s that time of year again when things go crazy. Although I’m working through the Christmas period again this year, I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and hope you are all safe and well for the start of another great year. Cheers!

If you’re an Australian running asterisk then you’ll probably want a heap of Australian sounding .gsm files for the voicemail and other menus. OpenVoice has done just that - and opened a lot up for free download. They also have AtHome and Premium packages for those wanting a more complete selection.

Wow, it’s been ages since I’ve manually compiled a kernel for Linux. Things have changed a lot! There’s a ton more stuff that I didn’t even realise was there (and I’m making lots of bum kernels! :)) John has made some updates to make the driver module work under kernel version 2.6.14.2.

I’m working on getting this going now, as there’s a great deal of excitement when putting this on the same machine as an RFID reader, 1 wire temp sensors, and electronic door locks etc :)

Yay, I’ve just completed the move to put asterisk on it’s own machine. Means I can play a bit more! I’ve set it up with 1.2.0, and actually put in SRV records in the crc.id.au domain - which in theory lets anyone call me just by calling crc.id.au.

I had one issue while moving across, but the guys in #asterisk on irc.freenode.net rock :) I’ve also updated my e164 records - so if you use asterisk and e164’s enum service, you can call me for free - transparently!

I’ve managed to get my hands on an Ontrak ADU-218. It’s a nice little unit that gives 8 x computer controlled relays and 8 x logic inputs using anywhere from 5-24v as a ‘high’.

This is a USB product, and seems to work very well! I’ve got it going under Windows with their supplied DLL file, however I’m trying to get it running under Linux now (it seems to be a HID device).

John Homppi has done a bit with this in the past but I can’t find anything since. Hopefully John still checks his mail!

Update: John has pointed me to his site!