VoIP Hacks

Credits

About the Author

Ted Wallingford is a senior network engineer with LCG Technologies Corp. in Elyria, Ohio, and the author of Switching to VoIP (O’Reilly). Ted has led installations of VoIP technology in the construction, manufacturing, and networking industries. A periodic contributor to Macworld magazine and VoIPfan.com, Ted is a strong advocate of open standards and Star Wars movies. He updates the web site http://www.macvoip.com/ at least a couple of times a year. Ted lives with his wife Kelly and two amazing kids, Jacob and Madelyn, in suburban Cleveland.

Contributors

The following people contributed their writing, code, and inspiration to VoIP Hacks:

Brian Degenhardt

Brian’s experience in the high-tech industry includes work in such diverse areas as network engineering, online media delivery, and console game development. Currently he serves as CTO of Four Loop Technologies, maker of the Switchvox PBX. Brian has contributed to numerous open source projects, including the GIMP and the Squid web proxy cache. He currently resides in sunny San Diego with his wife Tristan.

Kristian Kielhofner

Kristian is president of KrisCompanies (http://www.kriscompanies.com/), a consulting firm based in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and creator of AstLinux, a Linux distro configured specifically for Asterisk that features a very small footprint. Kristian has been working with Linux professionally for more than five years, since he began doing Linux system administration at the age of 16. Kristian started KrisCompanies in 2004 to help local businesses with their technology needs. In addition to creating AstLinux, he has also been involved with AstShape and Polycom configuration files.

Andrew Latham

Andrew is a networking consultant who offers VoIP, IP networking, and web development expertise via his web site, http://www.lathama.com/.

Dave Mabe

Dave (http://dave.runningland.com/)is an accomplished and largely self taught engineer and writer who strives to create simple, elegant solutions to complex problems. Dave has worked at AT&T in the communications industry for eight years. Always looking to save a few keystrokes and mouse clicks, he is the kind of person who would rather spend several hours inventing an automated solution than spend a few monotonous moments each day performing a menial task. Dave has been using Asterisk and other VoIP solutions for two years. He is the author of BlackBerry Hacks (O’Reilly).

Joel Sisko

Joel has been a self-proclaimed network convergence professional since 1992. He is the founder and CEO of Convergence Center LLC, a company focused on delivering the next generation of convergence-based applications and communications systems for value-added voice and data resellers.

Acknowledgments

The contributors who spent their very scarce time working on material for this book have my earnest thanks. These gentlemen are truly talented networking engineers, and their input and technical expertise were invaluable. Do business with these guys—they are established knowledge leaders in this new industry.

I’d also like to thank Mike Loukides, who recommended that I write VoIP Hacks (or perhaps he merely succumbed to my nagging). He edited Switching to VoIP, and he is the author or co-author of several excellent O’Reilly volumes, including the highly useful Unix Power Tools and one of O’Reilly’s earliest technical books, System Performance Tuning. He’s a pretty amazing pianist, too.

VoIP Hacks was edited by David Brickner. David’s editing is pragmatic, politically incorrect, and to the point. I love that. I’ll give David all the credit for anything good about VoIP Hacks!

This book survived the criticisms of several tech reviewers, including Kristian Kielhofner, Leif Madsen, and Jim Van Meggelen. Thank you for looking over my work; your expertise added much to the book’s accuracy.

I must heartily acknowledge my hometown crowd, too. My wife Kelly and my friends at Pathway have given me plenty of much-needed encouragement. The crew at LCG Technologies is a great bunch, too. I just barely squeaked this book out thanks to my new workload—keep up the great work, LCG. Thanks to Brian Downey of The Linux Fix for his expert Linux support, as well.