Hot Buttered IT

Learn how to save significant amounts of money by turning off your personal or business computers. Also included is the cost calculation to determine how much money you are wasting by leaving your computers powered on.
 

Reducing the amount of time your computer is powered on increases the lifespan, saves you money, and reduces the amount of harmful CO2 in the air. Talk about win-win-win! Most organizations and a lot of consumers leave their computers powered on 24/7/365 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year). Many of you may wonder how much electricity you are using and what the cost is on an annual basis. 

Just how much power does your computer use? That is not an easy answer, but if your computer is 3 years old, it is likely using on average 120 watts of power. While new computers may use less, a high end graphics card and other add-ons will boost the power usage. Do not confuse your power supply rating with power usage. If you have a 400 watt power supply, this is only peak amount of power it can dish out, and not actual power usage. (more…)

Tags: Environment Friendly Tips, Money Saving Tips // Add Comment »

You may have noticed that I reposted the Asterisk videos. However, I decided to transcribe everything so you could also review the notes. I know a lot of people still like having printed documentation in front of them.

I have a bunch of new video tutorials arriving. The 10 part video series on Audacity is nearly done. Subscribers to the free Hot Buttered IT newsletter have already viewed the first 4 and the feedback has been incredible. These videos may surpass the Asterisk videos in popularity. I’ll get the Audacity videos posted eventually, just not exactly sure when.

I have some other cool videos coming soon – just need a few hours of quiet time to complete them.

Are there any tech videos you would like to see?

Talk to you soon.

-Simon

Tags: News and Updates // Add Comment »

Asterisk Video Tutorials - Additional Resources and Conclusion

Wrap-up, sites to look for information and help

OK, lets do a wrap-up of what we have learned through our videos.

First of all we’ve learned what is VoIP and all that buzz around, we got introduced with asterisk and what can it do for us about VoIP.

Next, we’ve learned about how to install asterisk on linux systems along with some basic asterisk’s command line features and dialplan options. We also talked about setting up new extensions  using configuration files and about different actions you can do with calls in your system. (more…)

Tags: Asterisk, Open Source, Telecommunications, VOIP // Add Comment »

Asterisk Video Tutorial - Trixbox Features – Part 2

Trixbox features’ overview Part 2

In this video I will show you how to administer you trixbox system

In order to get to trixbox administration page you have to click on “switch” link near the “User mode” status text. The default username for every trixbox installation is “maint” and password is  a word  “password” in lowercase.

Once you are in administration mode, you will be presented with status overview of your system. Here you can see “System Statistics”, “FreePBX statistics”, freepbx is the name of the webinterface that trixbox use, so it will be mention on pages a lot. Also you can check your system uptime and “server status” to be sure that asterisk and other essential software is running ok.

As you can see using trixbox’ administration mode you can configure a huge number of options for your asterisk system without a need to memorize them all. I will not cover all of them, but you can get help on any single feature and option just by moving your mouse over it, as you can see the system is very well documented so you can be sure you won’t get lost. (more…)

Tags: Asterisk, Open Source, Telecommunications, VOIP // Add Comment »

Asterisk Video Tutorial - Trixbox Features - Part 1

Trixbox features’ overview Part 1

Ok, there are 2 ways to work with trixbox system, one is in user mode and the other is administration mode. Lets start with user mode.

User mode is that presented to you when you open your trixbox server in your browser, it also tells you about this on the page. Here you can see 4 options, one of them is “home” - this is where we are now. Also we have ARI here which stands for asterisk recording interface, MeetMe – a web interface for creating and administration of conferences and FOP which flash operator panel.

Clicking on ARI will bring user to a login page where you have to enter your extension number, which 200 in my case, and your voicemail password. After clicking on “Submit” button you will be presented with options you can set for your extensions and your voicemail. On voicemail screen you can see what voicemail messages you have, and take some actions with it, like delete it, move it to another folder or forward to another extension. (more…)

Tags: Asterisk, Open Source, Telecommunications, VOIP // Add Comment »