The following is a simple summary of the step by step ways of setting up VoIP system on the clients.

1. Assuming that the client already agrees with the terms and conditions of the products we're going to serve them, the initial procedure for the setup is to ask the client for their network connection. As the client says “yes” that they have a network or internet connection, you can now ready to install the system or configure the equipment, otherwise you can't able to start the setup.
2. With their PC that they were going to use as a server, install the Trixbox software. The Trixbox software contains a package program such as the asterisk billing, call records, meetme setup, and Linux CentOS operating system.
3. After the successful installation of the software, log-in to the server's software using the specified or assigned username with password
4. Upon logging in, quickly update the server using the designated command and wait for a number of minutes for the successful updates
5. With the command "help-trixbox", you can view the list of commands that you can use to manipulate the system and the corresponding username and password of some of the programs included in the system.
6. Immediately, change the password of some of the access to trixbox like the maint, meetme, recording, seudo, and others to be able for you to access the system even on the other computers provided that they have an internet connection
7. Now that the appropriate process had been done for the server to run using the Trixbox, you can now access the server on the internet using its IP address through the http protocol.
8. After you had accessed the server on the internet, always switch to admin mode rather than the user mode for you to perform the necessary task. Before you could reach the controls and administration to the system, the windows will ask you for the username and password. With maint as the username and with your assigned password, you could reach the controls and administration to the server as well as the creation of locals and trunklines that you would assigned to the VoIP.
9. With the "Setup" button, click on "Add Extension" and follow the corresponding configuration to assigned local numbers to your VoIP Set-up.
10. With the 'Panel' button, you can view the registered locals on your server. You can also view from this feature the actions taken by the user such as making calls, incoming and outgoing calls, status of the phones, etc.
11. Now that you already successfully assigned local numbers for the VoIP phones that the client would use, you are now ready to configure the equipments
12. Before you could configure the equipments, be sure that you already know the IP Address of the VoiP equipments. The IP Address of the VoIP phones could be known either of the two methods. One by accessing it to your PC by connecting a LAN port from the equipment to your computer and second by just pressing it to the menu list on the phones.
13. Now that you already know the IP Address of the equipments, you can now access it to the internet by typing its IP on the URL preceded by the http protocol.
14. As you have accessed the IP of the equipments, log in using the specified username and default password to be able for you to have the full access and control administration to the equipments
15. Perform the necessary configuration
16. After the successful confirmed of configuration, the server would show the connected locals of the system. The equipment itself would also confirm that booting successful!
17. You are now ready to make calls with your equipments and servers properly installed and connected
18. Note that always make sure that your server is always turn on and it has an internet connection
19. Your server using Trixbox could be access in any of your computer through the Internet provided that they shared the same provider as well as the equipments

 

Date: June 18, 2007

Into The Minefield

In those days programmers carefully flow-charted every little nuance of the code, erasing rectangles and diamonds, and re-routing flow lines until they were satisfied or exhausted, and then, after brushing off the eraser flakes, they would start a whole new battle with the coding sheet. After laboriously coding a fairly simple program, we had to get it keypunched, and when boxes of cards were dumped on our desk we had to check that the keypunchers had exactly transcribed our gibberish code into holes in the punched cards. All this took time and reinforced our perception that we were working in a minefield and had to tread carefully.

It seems strange now, but in those days we had no idea of how to design a program. We knew code, and individual instructions, and we wrote them down, and coaxed them through the many steps required to get them into the guts of the computer. We wrote spaghetti code that you wouldn't believe today. We tortured the computer and it tortured us back, and after many weeks or months we had something that worked most of the time and was marginally useful. And all this hard work reinforced our belief that computers were very difficult to master.

A single test took days. After flowcharting, coding, and checking keypunch cards we had to wait for an audience with the computer. We guarded our boxes of cards jealously. A dropped box of cards meant hours of sorting. We had to prepare JCL for a compile run first, and then our programs were offered to the clattering card reader in the manner of a human sacrifice. If it didn't chew up the cards, the mainframe would usually print out compile errors, and we'd have to go back to the source code. When we finally got a clean compile we were ready for a real test on a real computer.

The Dinosaur

The early machines are difficult to visualize today, but I worked on one, years ago, and have never forgotten. It was a LEO, only used for odd jobs. It was old even then, living in its own building, which looked like a holiday chalet. In fact, it filled the building. Trainee programmers filed through the door into the belly of the beast. We shuffled forward, single file, between ceiling-high banks of flashing vacuum tubes, clutching small decks of punched cards. In was like being in an amusement arcade on a hot summer day. We waited for our turn, sweating. A vacuum tube went "pop", and a bored operator unscrewed it. Our programs took a few minutes each to run, and were, I think, supposed to print our names and addresses on a dusty printer in the corner. Mostly, nothing happened, but the guy in front of me put his deck in the card reader and about a minute later the console lights froze. The head operator let out a howl of rage. “They've done it again,” he said to no one in particular. “We'll have to shut it down and re-IPL. No more tests today!” We all left the building.

Into The Future

As time went by, of course, the software got better, and the methodology got better, and we learnt top-down coding, and how to incorporate standard routines, and the kids coming up behind us began to treat computers like cars, to be souped up and tinkered with, and kicked a little when they didn't perform, and eventually we got the message.

Still, in the early days, the hardware didn't help us at all. When online processing via the CRT became available, we all began to pump out more code.

Coming to the States meant a quantum leap from the old way of thinking to the new for me. In Britain in 1968, the computer was still a scientific marvel to be treated with awe. Americans had already gotten over their sense of wonder. I learnt that the computer was a machine to be used, just like a car, or a TV, or a washing machine. Programmers tended to grab the computer by the throat and force it to do their will. Pretty soon, I was doing the same, and producing much more.

She's Not Intimidated

Today, mainframes and PCs chatter to each other constantly, and new methodologies and procedures and hardware have transformed computers and the way we use them beyond recognition. We make them do things that were impossible a few years ago. I watch my granddaughter, who has just learnt to read as she bangs away at her word processor. Soon she'll be hitting the chat rooms, and zipping around the world on the Internet.

She's not awed. She handles her computer the way I'd handle a book. One day, she, or the kid at the next desk will come up with an idea that will revolutionize the way we use computers. It will seem so simple to them. They grew up with the computer. Their minds were transformed by it. Computers, for me, were monsters to be tamed. To my granddaughter, they're cute little puppies. She'll make them do tricks I could never imagine.