jcm's blog

So I just moved into this place a few weeks ago. I paid a giant deposit and my first month’s rent. Then I decided to also give them a post-dated check for next month’s rent while I was at it (makes sense, since I might go visit family for a few days over the holidays). I called my landlord and was told that would be fine, they’d hold it…

Of course what they actually did was cash the check (the one dated December 1, the one with “RENT DEC ‘06″ printed in capitalized letters on the front, the one with an accompanying note saying what it was for…). This got me into a world of pain earlier on today that I’m sorting out at the moment. But I learned two important things today:

• I won’t be issuing any post-dated checks like that again. Not to those guys. If I’m travelling, I’ll have to FedEx or otherwise provide a check (since electronic payment hasn’t entered the game over here yet – mind you, it hasn’t really for rent in the UK either). I can’t believe it has to be like that. This is a trivially simple thing, not a patch to rtld.c.
• The bank will happily cash checks with a future date. This is really very worrying and we’re going to be having a little chat in the morning about that. A long chat in which I’ll make my dissatisfaction abundantly clear to them in language I hope that they’ll understand. I’m not even sure cashing that was remotely legal – would they also not bother to read the date clearly written on the front if it were signed “Donald Duck”?

I haven’t been this pissed off with a private company in a while (and I don’t mean the bank – I always expect them to want to screw you over). I love this apartment, really I do, it’s just a shame it can’t be as simple as “I want this apartment, here’s a direct debit mandate, let me pay you automatically”. One thing Europe does do better (I wrote about one cheque in the last year).

At least the Republicans are having a worse day

Jon.

So, I wasted time hacking on my Asterisk configuration over the weekend (I was feeling crappy, spent a lot of time asleep and then decided just to watch TV shows off iTunes while hacking this stuff). The result is that I’ve got two linked Asterisk servers with synchronized call menuing systems and way too many options…

When you call me on one of my cellphones, if the call is not answered immediately, it will divert to Asterisk. The centralized configuration presents the following menu:

• 1. Gets you into the menu list (default is just to mention it and divert to voicemail so you don’t get pissed off).
• 2. Call an internal number (requires a passcode).
• 3. Listen to voicemail.
• 4. Report an emergency (requires the passcode from my wallet).
• 9. Try calling my other mobile/cellphone(s).
• *. Access voicemail.

I like this setup, just a little bit. The system annotates redirections and keeps you informed while it’s trying to locate me by calling out “Call forwarding. Home. Please wait while your call is being connected”, “The number is not answering” and “Call forwarding. Voice Mail System. Please wait while your call is being connected”. And a lot more stuff I won’t even write about here.

The point is, if you like doing silly things with Asterisk, you might like this setup a little bit too. Next step, weird custom Asterisk applications (cmds) to properly handle two geodiverse Asterisk servers – since the current infrastructure support is pretty damn lame (you can use IsAvail and SIPPEER/IAXPEER to determine if a server is online, but you can’t easily say “on this remote Asterisk server, tell me if the extension is currently not registered or DND”). But I’m not complaining, I think Mark’s software rules.

I bought some more funky stuff in Whole Foods to celebrate.

Jon.

I’ve been hacking around with Asterisk configurations, DID and IAX in general. I’ve now got two Asterisk servers (one in the US, one in the UK) that have various ways of communicating with oneanother and handling my calls according to overly complex and pretentious configuration. Here’s a little more about how my configuration works. Let’s start by looking at what numbers I need to drive this:

• +1-617-759-1337 (US cellphone)
• +1-617-NNN-NNNN (US DID number)
• +44-777-613-1337 (UK mobile phone)
• +44-118-NNN-NNNN (UK DID number)

I generally give out two numbers – my US and UK mobile (cellphone) numbers – and let the network forward unanswered calls immediately to my (country specific) DID number (cheaper not to redirect internationally), which Asterisk has control over. This means incoming calls either get answered immediately or go to Asterisk – it then handles voicemail and call routing to my home/laptop SIP phones. The net result is that you can call either official published number and get routed through to me (or to my global voicemail service). It doesn’t matter where I really am when you call my number.

I’m not currently forwarding one cellphone to the other via Asterisk because I need some additional (and complex) scripting in order to avoid circular call redirects. In the worst case, Asterisk will timeout but I don’t want to have calls bounce around too long before they go somewhere – at the moment, it’s better they go to voicemail than spend a minute hunting to find where I’m at. I’ve had to add an artificial ring while Asterisk does its stuff as it is – but right now, it’s about 10 seconds for it to go figure.

Jon.

Photo: Fireworks with my family.

So I was in the UK speaking at LinuxWorld Expo 2006 and got to hook up with some family and friends. A leaving party took place on the weekend prior to last week and then, after a much needed day of rest Friday, I was getting ready to fly back to the States when I turned up at Heathrow to find an empty row of checkin desks. I had missed the flight due to a mixup over the timing and had to go out the next day. As it turned out, this wasn’t such a bad thing as we had time to do some family stuff on the weekend.

We had some fireworks to mark the unique British celebration of Halloween/Bonfire Night (unique in the sense that the latter gathers more attention around this time than does Halloween itself). It is traditional to mark the failed 1605 gunpowder plot to blow up parliament with fireworks to commemorate foiling this treasonous act. Personally, I do not celebrate the preservation of the British Monarchy (nor would I, since I believe it is fundamentally wrong) but I don’t believe in a violent removal either (certainly not for the pseudoreligious reasons of Fawkes himself). I just enjoy having an opportunity to purchase fireworks and enjoy them while it’s still legal to do so (without having an anal-fingerprint in a government wankerbase)

I did eventually fly back. This was return flight number 13 to North America (26 single flights across the Atlantic and counting) and I’m not superstituous, but when you miss one flight and then the taxi runs out of fuel on the way to the second attempt to get it – well, you start to wonder. As it actually turned out, the flight got here but we had heavy turbulance and my meal request got screwed up (probably due to the change in flight). Unlike American airlines (who had no excuse for screwing up my meal requests, leading me to stop flying with them), United apologized and prepared me a first class pasta meal in place of the regular pigeon class offering that I had “missed”. That was the best airplane food ever.

Jon.