Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Asterisk

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king walnut — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:19:27 -0800

What is the history of the ∗∗ operator, used for exponentiation? The earliest use I can find is with FORTRAN. But I'm wondering, did the FORTRAN designers invent it, or was the operator already in use somewhere else?

Business Class VOIP termination

clarkie666 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:24:43 -0800

Can anyone recommend business class VOIP termination that is not a fully hosted solution by the terminating company? So I am pretty new to this area but boy have I learned a lot in the last month. Our small business (50 users, 3 sites) was previously going with a fully hosted VOIP solution but following a full cost analysis the price difference between this and hosting our own was huge which is leading us down the Switchvox route.

We are planning on initially maintaining our 7 inbound analog lines for origination, however the missing link is VOIP termination to the PSTN for our outbound calls. Unfortunately it is difficult to evaluate VOIP service providers since the heavyweight ones provide their own hosted VOIP solutions (and don't seem to offer wholesale termination without using their hardware) and the wholesale providers range from fly-by-nights to what I am sure are reliable companies - but it is hard to tell the difference. Posts to VOIP forums are peppered with sales reps giving glowing recommendations of their own companies.

Can anyone recommend one? How much influence does the service provider have on overall quality and is it possible to buy termination over a private network? Bonus if you are working with a Switchvox or Astrisk system. Bonus bonus for reliable international calling.

Thanks much!

Self-referential Asterisks

Tube — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:30:47 -0800

What is the origin of using asterisks to bracket a self-referential action statement? The term "self-referential" should probably be qualified by "from an objective perspective". For example, instead of writing "I check my watch" I simply write *checks watch*.

Most etymology questions are about words or phrases, and not novel uses of punctuation. My guess is that this is an Internet meme, probably recent, but I'm curious if anyone can give me a better answer. Was this novel usage around before the Internet?

The Wikipedia entry for "Asterisk" gives me this:

"In informal written communications, particularly those via e-mail, instant messaging, or BBS, asterisks are often used to bracket a predicate denoting the performance of an action, to indicate that the person typing is performing that action. Example: *writes a wikipedia article*."

But there is no indication as to when or where this arose.

*hovers cursor over Preview the Question*

What does the asterisk mean on a US visa?

Listener — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:30:37 -0800

What does the asterisk mean on a US visa? My friend has a visa to travel to the US. Underneath his photo is one asterisk. I understand there can be from 0 to 3 of them there. What do they mean? Also, under Visa type/class it says R B1/B2. Does this mean regular business/pleasure, or are the R and B parts separate fields?

It's a server, a PBX and a dessert topping...

holgate — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:37:28 -0800

I'd like a file server. And a print server. And a low-traffic Asterisk server. All running from one box, please. I recently acquired a hand-me-down box that's ideal for turning into a general purpose file/print/backup server, and an old IP phone that should work well with Asterisk for VOIP. I'd like to combine the two. Is there a way to overlay the ease-of-setup found in dedicated Asterisk distributions (Trixbox, etc) on top of a generic Linux/*BSD server install? Will the standard Asterisk packages on Ubuntu et al. suffice?

Asterisk PBX in a small contact center?

saraswati — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:58:36 -0800

I'm trying to create a high level overview of the possibility of using Asterisk in a small (30-50 seat) contact center. For the people who know Asterisk and know the needs of a basic call center, what level of custom programming should I expect? My basic requirements:

- ACD
- Call monitoring (digital recordings for later playback, as well as realtime)
- Skillset routing
- Realtime and historical statistical reporting
- Call push (not sure what the techical term for this is, it's when the agent hears a couple of beeps in their headset and is then presented the call)

I'm still doing a lot of reading on Asterisk and possibly adding these features somehow but would like to hear the hive mind's opinion. Thanks!

How can I setup my own voice mail system?

Ezrie — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 17:47:49 -0800

How can I set up my own voice mail service? I want to set up something where people buy/rent phone numbers from me and setup voice mail greetings for their friends to hear when they call. How do I go about procuring multiple phone numbers in multiple area codes like "gotVmail" and similar services do? How do I setup voice mail to email? Basically, I want to set up a service like "gotVmail" without 99% of the bells and whistles. Can I do this with asterisk? Any insight into this is well appreciated.

Answering machines that call or email me.

jaimev — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:42:29 -0800

Are there any reasonably priced answering machines that can send email or can call me when a message is left on it? I guess one alternative is getting a really cheap PC and using Asterisk to make an uber-answering machine that can do this. But I'm looking for a simpler solution that I can use take calls at home, and somehow let me know when a message has been left on it.

How to change from PartnerMail to Asterisk?

jackofsaxons — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:35:43 -0800

I would like to upgrade my company's aging phone hardware from a Lucent PartnerMail system to Asterisk. Can anyone point me to a site, or worklog detailing something of this nature? We would like to keep our existing phones, and I'm not sure if and how it would support these phones.

asterisk and the soothsayer

Silky Slim — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 02:13:10 -0800

are there still search engines that accept an asterisk as a wild card? i'm trying to find a town whose name starts with an R and ends in "burg". i thought i could find it by typing "r*burg" into a search engine, but that doesn't work (with or without quotes). they all return answers that feature "burg" as a stand-alone word. i tried google, yahoo, excite and others. even old altavista can't do it anymore, apparently.
thanks in advance.

Which scripting language to learn?

jwadhams — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 18:09:51 -0800

Looking to learn a scripting language. Which? I'm a mostly networking/IP Telephony IT worker, and I’m finally ready to take the Asterisk plunge. And the one thing that impressed me most (ok, after the price tag) was the Asterisk Gateway Interface, basically a scriptable way to control phone calls, tie in text-to-speech, etc. You script all the computation and decision making, then feed back single-line commands like “get digits” or “play this WAV file”.

The problem is, while I have (in my school days) done some C++, ASP, and Java programming, what I know about Linux scripting languages could be handily contained on a cocktail napkin.

The examples I've seen on line (and in the excellent O'Reilly book about Asterisk) are all in PHP, Python, and Perl. In theory you could use anything, Pascal, Bourne...

So if you had to learn a scripting language, with no preconceived notions, which would you use?