The past 30 days are going to go down as some of the best days this year. In the past 30 days I have:

• Been to the Microsoft Visitor’s Center and Employee Store
• Visited the headquarters for Valve Software
• Played a new Team Fortress 2 map before the public was able to (It’s out now)
• Got my hands on Team Fortress 2 trading cards before publicly released
• Went on the Northwestern and chatted with Captain Sig Hansen
• Played the new Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm game
• Got a signed copy of the game’s jewel case
• Went up to the Space Needle (nothing special, but it’s been a while)
• Helped plan Comcast Cares Day for Everett Engineering
• Spent nine hours taking ~450 photos + video for Engineering’s Comcast Cares Day

If you want to view some of my photos and videos, here are my Neowin (one, two) and Comcast Cares Day photo sets.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do something this year that can beat all that. I’ve decided to postpone my usual vacation until further notice (don’t think I want to visit California again this year) so I can plan something different and have also begun considering about getting a new car.

On a previous entry I spoke about Trixbox and how you can turn it into a weapon to protect yourself against unwanted calls (see: Trixbox can help stop those annoying calls). Though Trixbox excels at disrupting incoming calls from telemarketers on dedicated equipment, it also works decently well in a shared environment.

As my cell phone is all I need for making calls these days, I don’t have a standard telephone connection in my apartment. Regardless, it can be nice to have the functionality of Trixbox so I currently have it installed on a Windows XP box that acts both as a casual gaming computer and a Trixbox PBX using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.

Usability

If you have no need to keep your PBX server running 24 hours a day, a shared computer is a cost effective way to go. While the hardware you’re running it on and amount of free memory can provided mixed results for the response time to your commands on the web-based interface and playback of built in audio files/voicemails, the actual call quality is just like any other installation - crystal clear.

To actually handle my calls. I have an Aastra 480i CT and a few cordless handsets. This phone is a great multi-line device with a full screen that can pull up custom designed web pages (once used to remotely control my iTunes software). I had no issues with getting this device to talk to the virtual installation of Trixbox, as Virtual PC 2007 acts like it’s just another computer out on the network by having a unique IP address that is not affected at all by the host computer’s firewall. The 480i CT also excels at plug and play in a Trixbox environment — I just had to tell Trixbox to assign the phone’s MAC address to a specific phone extension. After that I just plugged the phone in, waited a minute for it to boot up, and watched as it gathered the configuration data from the server.

So a question in my mind as I write this is: Would a software based phone provide the same amount of quality? I can’t see why not. As long as computer resources don’t put an intense amount of strain on both the host computer and the virtual PBX server, it should be fine. Or you can pick up a cheap GS-101 if you don’t need a fancy phone, but prefer using a handset over a computer microphone.

Connections

When I had a full PBX server, I had a FXO card so I could interface with the standard POTS (phone company) line and a VoIP link so I could get to the outside world when the POTS line was in use. In my current setup I just have a VoIP link.

Could the FXO card work in a virtual server setup? I can’t really answer that since I don’t have the FXO card installed in the computer, but I tend to be thinking that it could not work. Virtual PC 2007 shares various types of hardware - keyboards, mice, audio cards, and display adapters…but it does it in a way that you have to use specific Virtual PC drivers to access some of that hardware to get the most use out of it.

Virtual PC 2007 comes with special drivers if you install a Windows based operating system inside of it that will improve the speed and functions of that virtual operating system. As Trixbox runs in Linux, we do not have the option to take advantage of those drivers. Thankfully Trixbox is aware enough to access the virtual network card and other basic essentials.

So until I have the chance to install the FXO card again, that will be a mystery…but not an issue. My VoIP link is all I will ever need for this system.

Right now I have VoIP service through a company called Vitelity Communications. While their initial startup cost is higher than many other providers, their call and telephone number rates are some of the best I’ve found. The initial cost (as of this post) that gets turned into an account credit is $35. You can also add an 800 number for around $0.50 a month.

Setting up Vitelity inside of Trixbox is the same as configuring any other VoIP service. You add a trunk (SIP or IAX) with the specific login information that your VoIP provider supplies you and route calls through that trunk.

Issues & Reliability

Now, as I mentioned earlier, there are issues with the output of voice prompts and voicemail messages. When you play back a voicemail or try to navigate through an IVR, the audio is playing back at about half the speed it should be. I recorded an example that you can listen to below:

Other issues, such as internet latency and issues with your host operating system, could also cause issues with your call quality and VoIP server performance. If you’re going to use a PBX server for full time use, I would recommend dedicated equipment and a FXO card to connect your system to the local POTS service.

Virtual PC 2007, while an excellent free application from Microsoft, is not without fault. While so far I haven’t run into any serious issues, I did notice that if I interact with the application (right click on its icon, for instance), the virtual operating system will stop processing any functions. This can cause some issues (such as with the system time), but hasn’t been something that I have had to worry about yet.

Summary

If you’re interested in testing the waters of VoIP and Trixbox, this is the cheapest way to do it. You’re not going to get the best setup and you may run into issues like I have spoken about above, but it could be a good starting point to see if you’re at all interested in building a dedicated box and routing your calls full time over Trixbox.

Also the best support you are going to get for your Trixbox installation is at the official forums. There are many highly skilled and certified Trixbox users there who know more about the system and how it works than I ever will.

If you have any questions or corrections to something I have mentioned in this piece, please leave a comment and let me know.

As both a Mac and PC user, I need a way to quickly jump between both systems on my monitor which has multiple inputs. Since Multiplicity still hasn’t crossed the pond, I’m left with limited options.

Enter Synergy - A system to share your keyboard, mouse, and clipboard between multiple computers.

Synergy is a great tool, but isn’t the most user friendly when it comes to configuration.

1.  section: screens
2.    applecomputer.local:
3.    windowsxp-e2m9su4nlc:
4.  end
5.
6.  section: links
7.    applecomputer.local:
8.     left = windowsxp-e2m9su4nlc
9.    windowsxp-e2m9su4nlc:
10.    right = applecomputer.local
11. end
12.
13. section: options
14.    relativeMouseMoves = true
15.    keystroke(control+f1) = ; lockCursorToScreen(toggle)
16. end

Above is my configuration file for Synergy (computer names changed to protect the innocent). It’s fairly simple. The top section (section: screens) identifies the computers in our setup (lines 2 and 3). We have both an Apple Mac and Windows XP computer.

The next section (section: links) tells us how the two screens link together. Line 7 tells us the computer name and line 8 tells Synergy that when our mouse hits the left side of the screen, jump over to the Windows XP machine. Lines 9 and 10 tell Synergy that moving the mouse to the right side of the screen on our Windows XP computer will take us back to our Mac.

Lines 1 through 11 is all you really need to get it working. You could leave it with those lines and be content with the functionality. At least until you try and play certain full screen games.

You see, some PC games move you around the level based on the acceleration of the mouse and the direction it is accelerating in. While using Synergy, your mouse is told what X and Y coordinates it should be at on your screen. This really messes up games such as Half Life 2. You will literally find your character in a spasm of sorts.

To fix such an annoying issue, you have to tell Synergy to lock down the mouse. What this lock down will do is both prevent the mouse from exiting to your Mac screen and enable relative moves (the acceleration we were talking about earlier). To do this, we have to add a new section (section: options) and tell it to enable relative moving (line 14) and assign a hotkey to enable or disable this (line 15). In the example above, I am using CTRL+F1. If you are using a Mac as your Synergy server, you will most likely have to use CTRL+FN+F1 to activate the hotkey, as F1 on my keyboard is brightness control which is overridden by the FN key.

With this basic setup you are ready to have the best of both worlds. Well, maybe.

You see, Synergy is not without faults. Quite often I will be in Windows XP playing a full screen game with my mouse locked down to that screen when my Mac will pop up an alert that requires my input (such as a firewall request). When this happens, Synergy likes to give keyboard control back to the Mac — essentially creating a really hard time to get keyboard control back to the Windows XP computer. The only solutions I have found so far is exiting my PC game with the mouse and closing Synergy’s tray icon or unplugging the network cable on either of the computers, thus disrupting the Synergy connection between the two.

Even with it’s faults, it is still one of the only options for cross-platform control without opening the second computer in a VNC connection of some sort. It is also decently feature filled as well. If you have a chance, check out the configuration guide on Synergy.

So right now there is the big news that Microsoft (MSFT) wants to buy out Yahoo (YHOO) for an unthinkable about of money. While this unholy alliance of power could tip the balance of power scales in favor of Microsoft over Google, what would become of services such as Flickr? I, along with various friends and family, rely on Flickr for off-site storage and sharing memories with each-other.

So if the merger happened, how bad could it be? Here are some possible outcomes:

• Nothing. Microsoft lets Yahoo run as they are. No end user impact.
• Login services are merged with Microsoft’s Live service and we all have to change our Flickr usernames (again).
• Yahoo is absorbed into Microsoft completely. All search, mail, and identity services become Microsoft. Yahoo Mail gets a Live Maul UI, IM services inter-operate with Live Messenger, Search functions merge into Live Search, and Flickr becomes Live Images (!).

Whatever the outcome is to this event that had all the local news channels running endless looping “reports” about Microsoft’s bid, Flickr better be left alone.