[ale] Anyone playing with Asterisk?

[Jim Philips]

On Sunday 03 October 2004 11:47 am, Dow Hurst wrote:
> I was just reading an article in a Linux magazine on Asterisk.  Seemed
> really cool but the configuration was described as not easy for GUI
> oriented point and click admins.
> Dow

You would be surprised how easy it is to get started. I don't have any 
hardware hooked up to it yet, but you can do lots of things with the CLI, 
which looks kind of like the one for Python. Since it includes a complete 
voicemail system, there are voice prompts to give you instructions as soon as 
you type "dial" at the command prompt and hit "Enter". In about 30 minutes of 
fiddling, I learned how to dial my own dummy extension, leave a voice mail, 
dial voice mail and retrieve my voice mail. You can also dial another 
Asterisk box that is hooked up to the Internet, but I haven't been able to 
get that to connect yet. The test box may be down. If you have VOIP and hook 
it up to an Asterisk server, that is just one more way you can get advanced 
telephonic features without being taxed by the telco dinosaurs.