EonBlue

I manage and use several Asterisk PBX.  I’ve used a couple of distros (mainly TrixBox and PIAF) and they both come with the FreePBX front end.  I love FreePBX, but I’ve always found the Paging and Intercom function lacking.

The main problem I’ve encountered is that when you dial the extension to page, the routine will call each extension that you want to page and throw them into a dynamic conference with you.  Sounds great, but on my systems the extensions that are being called do not receive the messages at the same time.  Especially when some of the extensions are not located on the LAN.  This means that as you start speaking, some of the extensions have not joined the conference and will miss the start of your page.

So I decided to code up my own.  This version will record you page into a temporary file, then call all the extensions and playback the file.  The pro here is that there are no synchronization issues, since the playback is not live.

My version uses the allpage.agi which can be found here.

Put the following in /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf

[custom-paging]
exten => 7243,1,NoCDR()
exten => 7243,2,Record(/tmp/recordpage:ulaw|0|60)
exten => 7243,3,Hangup()
exten => h,1,NoOp(Finished recording page)
exten => h,2,Goto(custom-do-paging,s,1)

[custom-do-paging]
exten => s,1,NoCDR()
exten => s,n,DeadAGI,allpage.agi
exten => s,n,Hangup

[all-page]
exten => s,1,AbsoluteTimeout(60)
exten => s,n,NoCDR()
exten => s,n,Playback(/tmp/recordpage)
exten => s,n,Hangup

Then setup a Misc. Application in FreePBX.  I assigned 7243 (PAGE) to execute custom-paging.

I hope you find this useful!

By a 4-3 decision, the Florida Board of Education passed a new science standard that includes evolution and scientific theory!

This looks to be a decent standard, one that the creationists will be hard pressed to misuse or defeat in coming years, though that won’t keep them from their habitual lying and deciept.  Congrats to the concerned citizens in Florida that fought so hard to see pro-science standards kept and possibly enhanced.

Maybe this will be a blueprint for other states.

Apparently, you don’t need to go to jail if you confess to killing someone…

Choice quotes:

“He’s a hero, really,” said Kelley Graham, 24. “I don’t know how many people would do what he did. The Bible says you just need to confess to God. Calvin took an extra step.”

It only took this “hero” about 14 years to fess up …

“The debt he’s paying to our society is teaching our young people to do the right thing,” said Cheryl Ellis, a member of the church’s youth staff. “To lock him away someplace and say he owes it to society is robbing the next generation of a mentor.”

Perhaps the example he is giving is that you can screw up royally and hurt people and as long as you wrap yourself with religion, you will be treated with kid gloves.

“I am thrilled my son has a role model to accept responsibility the way Calvin has,” Thac said. “There are way too many men who don’t accept responsibility.”

And here’s what all the fuss is about…

According to police, Inman said he and a 13-year-old friend planned to rob the convenience store. When Ahmed asked to see identification before giving them tobacco, Inman stabbed Ahmed in the chest with a kitchen knife, police said.

I wonder what these people would say if this person had joined the Peace Corp to work in Africa with the hungry, and then admitted to the crime?

Meh, they’re probably thinking that he took a potential terrorist off the streets…