How to Build Your Own Home Phone Server

How to Build Your Own Home Phone Server: "

Using Asterisk in conjunction with Google Voice will help you dramatically reduce your landline phone bill

Google Voice. Skype. VoIP-to-PSTN providers. SIP-to-SIP calls. All of these technologies and products allow you to make calls that are either free or much cheaper than on your landline. Wouldn’t it be great if you could escape the clutches of your Telco and connect your home phone to these services? A phone server like Asterisk can help you realize this dream.

Short for Private Branch Exchange, PBX is a telephone exchange that is often used by businesses or offices. If you work a 9-to-5, chances are that your phone system is PBX-based. The short definition is that it’s essentially a network of phones connected to a main public switched telephone network (PSTN) that functions in a similar manner to a data network. In fact, in many instances today, the voice network is actually a VoIP-based network operating over data lines.

Don’t be intimidated; connecting Google Voice to your own home telephone line using Incredible PBX just takes a few configurations on this screen.

There’s a cheap and fairly simple way that you can ditch Ma or Pa Bell. The trick entails using an old PC to set up your own PBX in your home, and then connecting this PBX to Google Voice.

We’re going to show you how to set up your own home PBX server, how to connect it to Google Voice, and how to connect your landlines to the entire network.

Let’s get started.

Step 1: Install Asterisk

The best way to run Asterisk is on a separate computer. Fortunately, Asterisk does not require much horsepower, which means that you can use any old computer you have lying around. Many people actually prefer to run it on their wireless router using OpenWRT, a custom Linux distribution devised for embedded devices.

The easiest option for installing Asterisk is to use a Linux distribution designed for it. There are many available but if you want to integrate Google Voice you should make sure your distribution supports Asterisk 1.8.*.

We’ll use PBX-in-a-Flash (PIAF) burned on a CD. Go to http://bit.ly/VG9n, where you can download PIAF and find instructions for installation. Please note that the installation will reformat all drives including USB, so make sure you back up all critical information. After the initial install, there is a reboot; make sure you get the PIAF CD out or you’ll end up reinstalling. When prompted, pick the PIAF Purple install to get version 1.8 of Asterisk. It is stable enough for home use. Finally, make sure your root password is secure because if it is not, your phone bill could suffer.

You may be surprised to discover there is no GUI. This is because a phone server needs to process audio in real time. GUIs require CPU and their own real-time processing for the mouse cursor, so Asterisk distributions avoid them, and instead rely on command line and web applications for configuration and monitoring.

Step 2: Configure Asterisk

We now have a base installation of Asterisk, and are ready to begin configuring it. We’re going to use Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8 to integrate Google Voice onto our custom PBX server.

The Incredible PBX package will give us an advanced configuration that supports Google Voice. Log in as root and you’ll see a status screen that shows that Asterisk is running. Record the IP address that is shown. You may want to consider switching to a static IP, but it’s not essential.

It’s worth noting that the Incredible PBX code base changes over time. See http://bit.ly/aBKJiF for the latest instructions. Currently, you need five pieces of information to make it work:

• A Gmail account other than your regular Gmail account


• The password for this Gmail account


• The phone number assigned to this account by Google Voice. (Make sure your GV account is set to forward to Gmail Chat and that call screening and call presentation are off.)


• Your regular Gmail account


• A secure password such as the root password

Enter the following commands into the command line at the bottom of the screen:

cd /root

wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx18.x

chmod +x incrediblepbx18.x

./incrediblepbx18.x

Answer the prompts and wait for the install to finish. While the script is running, open a browser on another machine and open UDP port 5222 in Windows and on your router. Point it to the Asterisk IP address. Google Voice uses this for incoming calls.

Once done, set your passwords by typing passwd-master into the command line. Use the same password you did in the previous script.

Step 3: Perform Initial Tests on Your Installation

OK, you’ve successfully set up your PBX server and you’ve also connected it to Google Voice. Now we need to make sure that it works before we go any further. To do this, open up a web browser on another machine, go to: http://[Asterisk IP Address]/.

You should see the PIAF webpage. Monitoring and configuration can be done here. In the lower-left corner, click the Admin button. Click the FreePBX Administration button. This gives you access to the main tool for configuring Asterisk. In the left menu under the Basic section, click Extensions. Select 701 from the right menu. Scroll down until you see the Secret field. This is your SIP phone password for extension 701.

This PIAF setup screen will allow you to monitor, test, and customize your personal PBX.

You may also want to check the Asterisk console on the server. Press Ctrl + Alt + F9 to access it. All phone activity will display here. Type HELP to see all the commands available. Press Ctr + Alt + F1 to return to your login session.

The easiest way to test Asterisk is with a softphone—a program that behaves like a traditional telephone. We prefer X-Lite as a good option to work in Windows. You can download it at http://bit.ly/I0pol. Once you’ve installed it and gotten it running, go to the Account Settings screen.

Set User ID to 701, the domain to the IP address of the Asterisk server, and the password to the SIP phone password that was in the Secret field. When you press the OK button, the softphone should register itself and show its status as Available. Please note that Windows Firewall may require you to unblock X-Lite in order to make it work.

OK, let’s make a call. Make sure you have a headset connected or your speakers on. Dial 3366 and press Call. This runs the DEMO voice menu. If you hear Allison, the voice of Asterisk, then everything is working fine.

Now try phoning your home or cell phone number. The call should go out over Google Voice, the not-so-secret sauce that will save us hundreds of dollars per year thanks to Google making all calls to numbers in the United States and Canada free. (Thanks, Google.)

Finally, try using another phone to call the Google Voice number that was assigned. If all goes well, you should receive the call on your softphone.

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Step 4: Connect Your Real Phones to Your PBX Server

Softphones are fine, but isn’t the point of this exercise to connect the handsets in your house to your new personal PBX? Yes it is, and although it sounds confusing, it’s actually a pretty straightforward process.

To hook up your existing phones to Asterisk, you can get an analog telephone adapter (ATA). These convert plain old telephone system (POTS) lines to work with a VoIP protocol like SIP or IAX2. An ATA can be a stand-alone device or built into a router. They have one or more ports that can connect to a phone extension or an incoming landline. Make sure you get one that is unlocked.

One of the best choices for an ATA is the Cisco Linksys SPA3102. It has both an FXO and an FXS port, as well as a router.

To connect a phone you need an FXS port on the ATA. To connect an incoming phone line, you need an FXO port on the ATA. One of the best choices for an ATA is the Cisco Linksys SPA3102. It has both an FXO and an FXS port as well as a router.

Connect the ATA either at a wall plug or at the point where your phone service comes into the house (called the demarcation point). Plug an RJ11 line from the incoming line or wall plug into the FXO port, a phone into the FXS port, and an Ethernet connection into the WAN port. The LAN port is only needed if you want to use the ATA as a router.

Pick up the connected phone and dial ****, listen to the prompt, and dial 110#. Listen to the IP address read out to you. Enter 7932# then 1# and 1 to allow web access from the WAN side. If you are connecting from the LAN side, the IP address is 192.168.0.1.

Enter the IP address of the ATA in a browser to get the web interface. Click Admin Login and then Advanced. Detailed setup instructions for configuring the SPA3102 with Asterisk are at http://bit.ly/9hUgu7. There are a lot of steps but they are quite straightforward.

SIP Phones

Another option is to replace your old handsets with SIP phones. These connect to your home network through Ethernet, or sometimes wirelessly. A good option for a SIP phone is the Cisco SPA941, or the SPA942 if you want to share the Ethernet port with a computer or use Power over Ethernet (PoE). Each allows up to four line appearances. Here’s how to set it up.

Go into the menu on your phone and scroll to and select Network. Record the
Current IP address. Go there in a web browser to configure the phone. Click Admin Login. Select the Ext 1 tab. Enter your Asterisk IP address in the Proxy field, your name in the Display field, your desired extension (701 to 715 are already set up in the PBX) in the User ID field, and the secret for that extension in the Password field. Submit the changes and your phone will reboot. Go back to the page and you should see “Ext 1 is Registered.” You can now make and receive calls on your phone. See http://bit.ly/glYBe for further refinements.

You are now officially up and running. The only thing left to do is call your Telco and tell it to take a hike.

Other Awesome Asterisk Tricks

While our how-to focuses on using Asterisk in its most basic manner, it barely scratches the surface. The truth is that Asterisk can do all kinds of amazing tricks:

Make Skype Calls

In the same way that we’re hooking up Asterisk to Google Voice, you can perform a similar connection to Skype. NerdVittles.com has an excellent tutorial at http://bit.ly/9ve4Uk.

Get a Cheap VoIP to PSTN Provider

Google Voice and SkypeOut already allow you full-fledged access to public switched telephone networks to make calls, but redundancy is cheap. Pay-as-you-go plans are particularly worthwhile as you can make a small payment into an account and forget about it until your usage is large enough that you have to top it off. You can find a massive list of providers at http://bit.ly/g8ogzc.

Order Extra Phone Numbers

Direct Inward Dial (DID) numbers are available cheap or even free at http://bit.ly/Hg4lf or http://bit.ly/qmPy0. Is there someone you talk to regularly in a foreign country? Get a DID there and they can make cheap local calls to you.

Run Multiple Google Voice Accounts

Other members of your family can have their own unique phone numbers, and calls on the number can be directed to specific phones. http://bit.ly/eAuBMo

And More!

Get voicemail emailed as an attachment, or email a dictated message to someone. Customized music on hold. Voice menus. Video voicemail. Conference calls. Hotel-style wake-up calls. Text-to-speech. Customized caller ID. Numerous options await you on Asterisk.

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Small But Powerful: 30 Useful Apps Under 2MB

Small But Powerful: 30 Useful Apps Under 2MB: "

When it comes to computing, our general philosophy at Maximum PC is that bigger is better. More, speed, more memory, more power--as far as hardware goes, there's no such things as excess. Software, though... Software's a little different. Big, feature-packed utilities and applications are great, but we prefer apps that show a little restraint.

That's why we've put together a list of 30 apps that kick ass without taking up a lot of space. Every program in this list can be downloaded for free, and takes up less than 2 megabytes of space. Read on for more!

SpaceSniffer

What the heck is taking up all that space on your computer? Find out with SpaceSniffer. Like WinDirStat and a few similar programs, SpaceSniffer scans your drive and creates a visual representation of all the stuff that’s on it, so you can see at a glance what’s cluttering your boot drive. From there you can right-click to interact directly with files and folders—anything you can do from the right-click context menu, like delete, cut, copy, and paste, you can do in SpaceSniffer.

f.lux

Ever notice it’s hard to sleep at night after staring at your computer screen all evening? It could be the color temperature of your monitor. F.lux is a simple app that matches the color temperature of your screen with the lights in your room, and with natural light in the morning. Go easier on your eyes; you only get one pair. Presumably.

CPU Z

CPU-Z has grown to be one of the most valuable tools an enthusiast can access. It gives you the nitty gritty on what clock speed your CPU is running at, what it idles at as well as what stepping and revision it is. CPU-Z also gives you quick info on your motherboard, RAM and GPU too. On a rigs, we often use CPU-Z to verify that our CPU is running at its rated speed. Believe it or not, but sometimes a motherboard will incorrectly set the multiplier for a CPU and unintentionally under clock the chip. We put a load on the CPU with Prime95, and then use CPU-Z to verify that all is what it should be.

TeraCopy

Windows’ file copying and moving can be a little arcane, and the interface lacks much useful information. TeraCopy is designed to copy and move files as fast as possible, with plenty of options not available in Windows Explorer, like pausing and resuming, error correction, and test copying. It can also integrate seamlessly with Windows to replace the default file movement system, unlike similar programs like FastCopy.

Everything

Think Windows 7’s built-in indexed search is fast enough? Think again. Everything, from Void Tools, is a ultra-light-weight indexed search app, that makes looking for files jaw-droppingly fast. Like, instantaneous.

If you don’t believe us, try it out for yourself—we guarantee you’ll be impressed. Indexing is remarkably fast (a minute or so per hundred gigabytes indexed) and Everything’s system footprint is minimal. You can only search in filenames, but regular expressions are supported and the speed is phenomenal.

TMonitor

Core i3/5/7 chips are great at handling thermal and power loads. Instead of simply crashing or locking up your box, most Core iX chips just throttle the clock speeds down until the heat is manageable. That’s great, except you don’t really know if you’re giving up performance because your heat sink or case air flow is underperforming. Since the chip throttling doesn’t appear as an error in the OS, you’ll have to rely on the wonderful TMonitor. This utility monitors the clock speed of each core in real time and even shows you what the Turbo Boost level of the chip is. Fire up TMonitor, and load up your CPU with a good work multi-threaded load such as Prime95. TMonitor should show all of the cores running at maximum clock speed and without any sags. Let it run for at least 15 minutes to an hour. If the TMonitor shows large sags on some of the cores, you have a thermal issue with your system.

Darik’s Boot And Nuke

Pretend that you’re an editor at a web site that just came across a prototype phone from a fascist-like computer company. Great ! Well, that is until the company’s illegal security contractors start kicking in your front door. What are you go do? You should have Darik’s Boot and Nuke handy. Simply download the pre-built ISO, burn it to disc, and when needed, reboot to the disc. DBAN will begin nuking your PC’s storage subsystem and any hard drive it can detect. For many of us who don’t live the Hollywood, high-adventure lifestyle of a web editor, DBAN’s probably more handy for wiping old machines before you sell them or give them away.

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Delayer

At 28K in size, Delayer is truly tiny. But it’s actually one of the most useful apps we have on our rig. We use Delayer to create some automation around our basic applications. It does what the name suggests, and allows you to create delays in launching Windows applications. It’s handy for running sequences of programs, setting up your taskbar icons in a preferred sequence, and even creating pop-up reminder messages.

Eraser

Because we are constantly swapping out systems, drives, and components, this one’s a no-brainer. Eraser is a highly secure data removal tool. It’s effective because it doesn’t just delete your data, it completely nukes it all by overwriting it with patterns of data generated specifically to prevent future recovery. Best of all, it’s free.

uTorrent

We like uTorrent because it’s a lightweight (400K), fast, simple, and easy-to-use BitTorrent client that boasts many of the features in bigger clients such as BitComet. It supports UPnP, it automatically adjusts your bandwidth usage based on network activity, and you can customize the client via the uTorrent’s App Studio. And did we mention that it’s fast. Like many of the apps on this list, it’s also free.

KeePass

We all know that we should be using multiple passwords for multiple accounts. But do you do it? No. Why not? Because it’s impossible to remember all the passwords. KeePass is great because it handles this for you. A 256-bit encrypted database keeps all of your passwords locked down and accessible via Windows or even mobile devices.

Gmail Notifier

We’ll keep this short and simple. The Gmail Notifier displays an icon in your system tray whenever you receive new messages, displaying subject, sender, and a snippet of the message.

CCleaner 3.0

We’ve been a big fan of CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner) for many years to help decrappify Windows. This donation-ware (but still available for free) application's main appeal is dumping out unused file areas to save space, but it also features a registry cleaner and can securely delete free space on your hard drives if need be. It’s well worth the install and it doesn’t oversell itself as being able to rejuvenate your system like some clutter-clearing applications do.

7-Zip

This is our default file archive package, partially because it’s free, but mostly because it’s power, flexible, and effective. The 1.09MB 7-Zip unpacks all manner of archive formats, including ZIP, TAR, GZ, and the application even has its own file format—7z—which is remarkably efficient at compressing files. It also supports 256-bit AES encryption, and can be configured to utilize multiple CPU cores.

Color Cop

Color Cop is a multi-purpose color picker that allows users to determine the color (and coding) of any color on any given screen. If you’re trying to find the color of something particularly detailed, you can also use the magnifying tool to select individual pixels, ensuring that you find the color that you’re looking for. Awesome software for graphic designers and Photoshop enthusiasts.

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IrfanView

IrfanView is a photo and video viewer that allows you to perform basic editing and color corrections. You can organize images or movies into slideshows, access the paint tool to draw over your image, and change the skins on your toolbar. You are also given access to a series of effects and filters to further alter your image. The real kicker, though, is that IrfanView supports a huge range of file formats. All free, in an app less than 2mb. Impressive.

Easy Thumbnails

Easy Thumbnails has a pretty self explanatory name, and that’s a good thing. Basically, opening Easy Thumbnails puts you into your computers directory, where you can select any image that you’d like to resize. For batch jobs, it’s a real time saver, as you can simply choose a series of images, choose a new size for them, and have a series of thumbnails ready to post wherever you’d like. Easy Thumbnails also saves original copies of your images, incase you’re not happy with your resize. A handy little program.

Resize Enable

Resize Enable is interesting in that there isn’t even an interface to the program—you simply install the small file, then you are able to resize nearly all windows on your desktop—including the ones that you couldn’t prior. This helps consolidate all of your open windows without the need minimize so much. Very handy.

Nail It!

Nail it1.10 installs to your taskbar, and basically allows you to ‘nail’ any given window in your OS. What does this mean? Well, if you a nail a window, that window will stay on the top, no matter how many other windows you choose to open. If you’re tired of your nailed window, you can un nail it, and assign the nail to a different window. There are a ton of practical things you can achieve with this app—we found that nailing an analog clock to our desktop kept things a bit more classy.

Internet Traffic Report

Internet Traffic Report is a nifty app that loads into your toolbar. The icon represented in the toolbar is the performance rating for which designated internet path you choose to monitor; using the configure tab, you can choose which region of internet you’d like to monitor, or switch monitoring between servers altogether. Basically, ITR is a GUI that allows you to find and diagnose bandwidth issues, wherever you are.

LogMeIn Hamachi2

LogMeIn Hamachi2 is an easy-to-configure utility that sets up a Virtual Private Network to let you securely access remote networks. Simple, secure, and free for noncommercial use, it’s perfect for creating mock-LANs for LAN gaming at a distance, or for creating a virtual office network. Use in conjunction with UltraVPN to securely control your PC from anywhere.

HijackThis

Strange things happening to your PC? HijackThis, from Trend Micro, generates a full report of everything that’s running on your computer. Helpful forum denizens (yes, such things exist!) can then help you parse your HijackThis log for anomalies, like spyware and malware. If you’re feeling especially brave, you can use HijackThis to remove unwanted files yourself, but the software itself will helpfully remove anything you ask it to—including important things. So be careful.

PC Decrapifier

If you’re in the habit of buying new laptops (or off-the-shelf desktops), you’re familiar with the stupendous array of bloatware that can ship with new computers. PC Decrapifier should be your first download on a new computer. Run it once and get rid of all the crap. And dream of a future in which software companies don’t pay hardware companies to include crapware on new PCs. Not bloody likely.

Memtest86+

Not everyone can put out the cash for Ultra-X’s RST Pro (RAM Stress Test Pro) tools but Memtest86+ is likely more than enough for the average enthusiast trying to trouble shoot an ailing system. An offshoot of the original Memtest86, the utility is constantly updated to support new processors and chipsets and will even work with Sandy Bridge CPUs and AMD’s new Fusion chips. Simply download the pre-built ISO from the web site, burn it to a disc or create a bootable USB stick, plop it in the ailing PC and boot to it. Memtest Plus will immediately being running test patterns across the memory. Any errors or problems will be flagged.

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Prime 95

If you think running your favorite game is a good stress test of your CPU, you’re wrong. While games are good at testing a GPU, they don’t do squat to a CPU. If you really want to squeeze your CPU hard, use Prime95. Download it, unzip the file and click on the Prime95 executable. It’ll ask if you want to search for Primes or just do some stress testing. Select stress testing. You should then get a menu of different stress tests and what subsystems they stress the most. Your system should be able to finish any of the tests without any errors or crashing. If something blue screens, you likely have a thermal, power or RAM issue with your box.

Greenshot

If you take screenshots with any sort of frequency, you know that the standard screenshot functionality in Windows just doesn’t cut it. There are a lot screenshot tools floating around, but our favorite is Greenshot, which is tiny, efficient, and has all the features we need.

Greenshot gives you a lot of flexibility in how shots are saved—whether they go to a folder, the clipboard, or straight to Photoshop. It also lets you choose exactly how you want to take shots. You can assign different hotkeys to take full-screen shots, custom-area shots, single-window shots and more.

HashCalc

Now, we’re not going to claim that every person needs a hash calculator. If you only download software from trusted location, and don’t compile anything yourself, you’re probably safe without one. But when you DO need a hash calculator—if you want to make absolutely sure that the file you download is bit-for-bit identical to the file you wanted—you should get a good hash calculator. Thus, HashCalc.

HashCalc is small, fast, free, and it shows you hashes in pretty much any format you can think of. What more could you want?

ShellMenuView and ShellExView

Alright, technically this is two apps, but they work together to serve a single purpose.

That purpose? Taking back control of your context menu. Whether a full on shell extention, or a regular context menu item, these two programs from NirSoft have you covered, allowing you to disable any item in your context menu that you no longer want. For full instructions for using ShellMenuView and ShellExView, see our how-to article right here.

VirtuaWin

Multiple desktops are a classic form of desktop organization, but have never had native support in Windows. Fortunately, there have always been third-party solutions that inject desktop-switching functionality back into the OS.

There are a lot of options available, but there’s several good reasons to choose VirtuaWin: it’s Open Source, tiny, doesn’t use many system resources, and it gives you all the functionality you need to manage programs across four virtual desktops.

StrokeIt

If you’re the kind of PC power-user for whom even hotkeys aren’t fast enough, you might want to think about mouse gestures. Without even having to reach for the keyboard, you can bind pretty much any action you can think of to customizable mouse gestures using StrokeIt. Adolescent pun-name aside, StrokeIt’s an absolute necessity for anyone looking to use their mouse for more than just pointing and clicking.

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