docduke

I know you can do it from cPanel, because I've done it there. I haven't used ftp here, so this is just a general comment. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the websites here are configured so that an anonymous ftp login is prevented from changing permissions. After all, if that is permitted, anyone who finds the ftp website can make files there writeable, and add viruses to them, for example.

Partition Magic and Drive Image were two very useful tools from PowerQuest. Unfortunately, they got greedy and copy-protected their versions around 2004, and also changed them in major ways so that they no longer worked with anything earlier than Win 2K. The result was that they drove away most of their market, and had to sell out to Symantec. Symantec was delighted to buy them, since DI was the main competition to Norton Ghost. Anyway, PM and DI are at this point obsolete for anything newer than Win 2K. If you're willing to pay for an alternative, I suggest Boot It Next Generation and Image (for Windows, Linux and/or DOS) from TeraByte Unlimited. As Yordan has said, Linux can do most of this stuff by itself these days, but there is a learning curve. I use SuSE 10.3 for most of my Linux work, but it differs significantly from "vanilla" Linux, primarily due to extensions that I find very useful. One other thing to remember -- if you're planning on creating backup files of full partitions, you may want to use NTFS rather than FAT32, because of file size limits. The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB minus 1 "null" byte (232−1 bytes). That also means you cannot store the iso image of a full DVD in a FAT32 file system.

To answer the original question about static addresses, in both Linux and Windows, the key files are "hosts" and "lmhosts". In Linux, they are usually in /etc/. In Windows 2000, they are in \WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\. In Windows, the lmhosts file defines the decimal addresses corresponding to given names, for example: 192.168.1.11 alpha #PRE192.168.1.12 beta #PRE192.168.1.13 gamma #PRE The "#PRE" tag instructs Windows to load this table before trying to resolve any addresses. If you use such static assignments, you need to have this lmhosts file in EACH of your computers, since your DHCP won't know these addresses. In Linux, there are additional options on these lines that vary with different Linux flavors. The hosts file is where you can define external translations (outside your lan), and also where you can "blackhole" websites. For example if you wish to identify Fred's computer and also prevent your computer from visiting http://www.spammaker.com/, insert lines that read:64.22.1.1 fred127.0.0.1 spammaker.com That instructs your computer to look at 64.22.1.1 for http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and only inside itself for any web address that contains "spammaker.com".

Take a look at the dates on the posts. The thread started almost a year ago. It looks to me like Ali Athar has changed enough since then that the links are broken.

I have a Radeon 9550 video card which has one analog and one digital output. I bought a second analog monitor (cheaper than digital) so I could double the screen real-estate. All that was required was an adaptor to plug the second analog monitor into the digital plug. The next time Windows 2000 Pro booted up, it noticed the second monitor and asked me to configure it. Basically, Windows wants to know where it is physically located (left, right, top, bottom) and what resolution it should have. I suggest you give that some thought. My normal configuration is stock market windows on the right (original) screen, and browsers, etc. on the left screen. I use a Zone Alarm firewall. I have it set so programs that want to use the internet have to ask permission of me. "Permission" is granted in a pop-up window in the lower-right corner of the right screen. If I had thought more about it, I would have located that in the lower-right corner of the left monitor -- in the middle of the extended desktop, reducing mouse travel. (Yeah, I could change it. Yeah, I'm lazy. ) All is not roses with two monitors. This computer also boots SuSE Linux 10.1. SuSE was installed with just one monitor. Now, when it boots up, it recognizes the second monitor, but it doesn't really understand what to do with it. The initial bootup splash screen comes up on both monitors, but when it brings up X-Windows for the desktop, the second monitor goes blank except for the message: OUT OF RANGE, meaning that SuSE has told the video card to use a higher frequency than the monitor can support. It is presumably using the (higher) specs for the original monitor. There are some more cautions if you are using Linux and an older monitor, or a basic video card. About 8 years ago, I fried a monitor running SuSE (about version 6, as I recall). Older monitors may not check whether they are being overdriven, and Windows is better than Linux was at avoiding the problem. An overdriven monitor can literally melt the electronic components in the drive circuits. More recently, I fried a video card using a Linux screen saver. SuSE has (or at least had) a Matrix screensaver, which did an excellent imitation of the computer screens you saw in the movie. I liked it so much that I left it up on this computer. After about a month of that, the text on the monitor started getting "jumpy." I finally realized that the vector graphics in that "screen-saver" were driving the video card so hard that it began to fail.

I am working with a system integrator to put together a machine for heavy use of virtualization. He has put together lots of desktop and server systems with multiple monitors. His comment is that it is much better to get a single video card with multple monitor support, instead of adding another video card to a system that already has video support. The problem with multiple video cards is that each makes heavy use of interrupts, and there is the potential for many conflicts at the system level. That said, it appears that some careful shopping is appropriate. NexTag currently lists a Matrox G200 MMS Quad VGA/TV Tuner for only $119, but the description has a raft of strikeouts, and Matrox does not currently list it. A current offering is G450x4 MMS, which NexTag has for $449. There appear to be 3 markets for 4x video cards: financial, server-workstations and gaming. Before selecting such a card, you need to decide how much speed, resolution and 3D multithreading capability you need, because the fancy cards get expensive fast.

Your timing is excellent! Openmoko's Neo FreeRunner smart phone for Linux now available. According to the article (which is all I know), they aren't yet ready to mass produce them. Your other option is the Open Handset Alliance, which is Google's consortium of hardware manufacturers who have agreed to support the Android mobile platform. Android is written in Java, so you can run it on Linux, or anything else that supports Java. Only prototypes so far, but they're striving mightily to have hardware for sale before Christmas, to compete with the iPhone. The third (more distant choice) is Symbian, which was designed as a mobile platform from the ground up, is definitely not Linux, but has a lot of support. It has recently gone open-source. Hope this helps!

I have had an email address on gamma for 6 months. I have received zero spam there. I would infer from that, that there is definitely not a deliberate policy of harvesting email addresses.

Normally, I spend $400-$600 for the guts of a computer (no monitor, keyboard, just a small hard drive) then add stuff. This time, I intend to get a more expensive "keeper," which is why I want to pick the brains of this very sophisticated collection of geeks! The history of the "hardware instructions" I mentioned is really quite interesting. The University of Cambridge developed the Xen⢠virtual machine monitor. Along the way, they commented that if a few new instructions were added to the x86 architecture, a collection of virtual guests could run at near-native speed on otherwise normal x86 hardware. Both Intel and AMD listened, and came up with Intel VT and AMD-V extensions to their standard instruction sets. Recently-developed virtualization software can recognize and use either of these. Unfortunately, one can't just get a current CPU with these instructions and put it in a motherboard. The motherboard can disable these instructions. According to reports, some do. Naturally, columns that say this, do not say which ones do, and I have not seen a list of which ones are suspect. I would guess they are probably proprietary motherboards, such as from Dell or HP, where they don't want to sell a "cheap" computer that can do "expensive" tasks, but that is purely a guess on my part. In any case, I would very much like to hear from you if you have successfully run hardware virtualization on your motherboard. My remark about the AMD Crossfire was noting that on a pure Intel motherboard, the ASUS description claimed to have AMD Crossfire capability. Trust me, I'm certain Intel is not paying royalties to AMD for a proprietary graphics engine!

Virtualization is a relatively arcane subject, but it is one which is very rapidly growing, and apparently very "hot" in commercial enterprises. For the hobbyist with multiple computers (I have 8), it offers the possibility of taking snapshots of running, fully configured applications and operating systems, and transferring some or all of them onto a single computer platform. First, it saves energy. Second, once the conversion has been made from real hardware to a virtual "guest," the driver problems associated with moving from one hardware platform to another are solved. In addition, virtualization solves other problems: {1}Want to browse virus-infested websites? Set your "guest" so it can't save anything. It doesn't know it can't, but the next time you start it, it goes back to the previous guest image. {2} Want to always have a current backup in case of a crash? Let the guest image update (default case), and you always have a backup. My primary interest is in Linux hosting of the virtual systems, so I was inclined to go with a straight Intel CPU and chipset, which should mean drivers are available. I just took a look at the ASUS website which was suggested here (post #13), and I find it very frustrating. This virtualization thread is far off-topic there, so I am starting a new topic with it. The most recent computer I got was about 6 months ahead of the hardware-virtualization instructions. I now have an RFQ out for a virtualization platform. Since I have no hands-on experience with hardware virtualization, I would welcome any suggestions anyone might have. The options I am considering include: MSI P45 Neo -- LGA775 package, DDR2 memory MSI P45 Diamond -- LGA 775 package, DDR3 memory MSI E7520 Master -S2M Dual Xeon MSI K8D Master3-133-FA4R Dual AMD Opteron I have not looked at Dual Xeon or Dual Opteron systems before. That was recommended by one of the guys at the systems integrator. I really don't understand why the memory in their specs is so much slower than the others. Here are 3 ASUS products: ASUS Z7S WS ASUS P5E I find the ASUS description has lots of pretty promotional text and graphics but it omits the stuff I really want to know. For example, it tells me its memory speed, but not how much memory it can support! I also want a system that can host a minimum of 6 sATA and 2 IDE hard drives. Again, I am unable to find the information. It is not clear that the promotional material even applies to the motherboard to which it is attached. For example, the F5E is a pure Intel system, yet it is claimed to have AMD CrossFire graphics. Have you had any experience with virtualization? Good or bad, please share it here!

Thanks for the tip, that's exactly where I'm headed! The last computer I got was about 6 months ahead of the hardware-virtualization instructions. I now have an RFQ out for a virtualization platform. Since you have already been there, I would welcome any suggestions you might have. The options I am considering include: MSI P45 Neo -- LGA775 package, DDR2 memory MSI P45 Diamond -- LGA 775 package, DDR3 memory MSI E7520 Master -S2M Dual Xeon MSI K8D Master3-133-FA4R Dual AMD Opteron I have not looked at Dual Xeon or Dual Opteron systems before. That was recommended by one of the guys at the systems integrator. I really don't understand why the memory in their specs is so much slower than the others. My primary interest is in Linux hosting of the virtual systems, so I was inclined to go with a straight Intel CPU and chipset, to get the best availability of drivers. I just took a look at the ASUS website, and I find it very frustrating. Here are 3 products: ASUS Z7S WS ASUS P5E unprintable I went after the third one to point out to you, and got Sorry! We are undergoing website maintenance ... Anyway, I find the ASUS description has lots of pretty promotional text and graphics but it omits the stuff I want to know. For example, it tells me its memory speed, but not how much memory it can support! I also want a system that can host a minimum of 6 sATA and 2 IDE hard drives. Again, I am unable to find the information. It is not clear that the promotional material even applies to the motherboard to which it is attached. For example, the F5E is a pure Intel system, yet it is claimed to have AMD CrossFire graphics.

I'm not sure I can do justice to this, but I'll take a shot at it. L. Ron Hubbard wrote SF. One of his more famous books was made into a movie as Battlefield Earth. According to Wikipedia: It was a major commercial failure and critical flop and has been widely dismissed as one of the worst films ever made. I was unaware of that, bought it on DVD for my son, who was 12 at the time, and concluded that it had {a} some scientific merit, {b} limited character development, {c} a simplistic but positive ending, and {d} about a grade of B- for its place in the Science Fiction genre. As a window into the mind of L. Ron Hubbard, it provides useful insight. Scientology qualifies as a cult. People who get involved tend to "give" a lot of money to it, and often have great difficulty getting out. Scientology claims to have many secrets, and agressively defends them in court. People who have looked at their court actions conclude that Scientology spends a lot of money on good lawyers, and gets good courtroom decisions for it. Because of the tax-exempt status of a recognized religion in the U.S., they may have very good financial reasons for doing this. By now, Scientology is financially a very big (and presumably profitable) business. It is so big that it is giving national governments problems. For example, Germany has had run-ins with it. I have been generally aware of Scientology for more than 30 years, having been introduced to it by a high-school girl friend. Since then, my perspective has changed, and I offer you these parting thoughts. Scientology started out as a small, quirky pseudo-scientific cult. It roped people in, but got them thinking along parallel lines. There are many other philosophies that better qualify as religions: Christianty, Judiasm, Bhuddism, Taoism, etc. It is my impression that Scientology is more successful than any other on this list, at getting its participants to think alike. There is one "religion" I haven't mentioned yet. It is Islam, and I am referring to radical Islam, which according to The Dunces of Doomsday has the active support of, or submission by, approximately 95% of Muslims. There appears to be no force in the West that is remotely prepared to confront radical Islam. The Dunces the book refers to are primarily the U.S. Presidents from Carter to George W. Bush. Dunces makes a compelling case that neither the Presidents, nor their advisors, nor the "intelligence" agencies, nor their State Departments, have any idea at all what they are dealing with. Perhaps Scientology can be one small part of the Western response.

Exactly on target, and that is why many governments do their best to stamp it out -- they don't like the competition! Theocratic governments, of course, have it under their direct control, so it is simply an extension of government control. For better or worse, the need for religion, or some other form of faith, seems built into the human personality. Those who lack a conventional religious faith seem to involve themselves in nationalism, environmentalism, or some other "large undertaking" that gives an activist an outlet for cooperative action. Almost 4,000 years ago Egyptians began building pyramids. Their purpose was to serve as a gigantic stairway by which the soul of the deceased pharaoh could ascend to the heavens. Using this very pharoh-centered justification, the government managed to persuade a large number of its citizens to perform very difficult manual labor. Fortunately, modern religions are not as demanding of their believers!

For the lurkers out there, this is a textbook example of why I no longer buy Dell, E-Machines, HP, etc. I go to a system integrator and spec the motherboard and CPU, then cannibalize the generic parts from another computer. Usually, but not always, costs less, since monitor, power supply, etc. get reused. I used to get Gigabyte motherboards, but I've had one die, and another one is dying now, both with pregnant capacitors. More recently, I've been using MSI motherboards. They keep older ones available for both lower price and compatibility, and they also carry cutting edge boards. They support both Intel and AMD. Anyway, all my computers are multi-boot. That used to be easy with Power Quest's Boot Magic, but those guys got greedy and drove away their customers. With XP and Vista it gets harder, because of the security features built in. Late-model MSI motherboards have a "Live Update 2 " BIOS that is very customizable. It has a "fast boot" option that makes it almost impossible to interrupt. I disable that first With a more normal boot, hitting F11 gives you a list of the installed drives (I have 5, including 3 in swappable bays, plus a DVD drive), and you can choose at that time to boot from any of them. If you want to easily multiboot from a single drive, consider Terabyte BING (Boot-It Next Generation). The folks there have a really elegant solution to multiboot, which does much more than anything else I have seen (but it isn't free). I use it in conjunction with an MSI motherboard, and currently have it booting 8 different OSs in this machine.

You need to think through what you want to protect. Browsers are simply source-code compilers. Feed them a text and binary stream of data, and they convert it into a graphical layout on the client computer screen. The server side has complete control of the data stream.One very common choice is to use PHP, CGI, etc. to generate html text. The resulting data stream cannot be hidden, because otherwise the client browser has nothing to work on. Alternatively, the server side could do the layout itself and just send a graphic (e.g. JPG) image. This has the advantage that the client experiences "what you see is what you get," but many people with different screen sizes (for example, on a cell-phone browser) may find it completely unusable. Visually impaired users may want their browser to read the screen in audio. That would not be possible.Generating code for a browser is like writing a book. First, decide who your audience is. Then decide what that audience wants. Then give it to them, in a form that does not cause you unnecessary problems. If you go through that analysis systematically, you are left simply with the choice of tools to facilitate this process.

Mine was off last week as well. What works for me is going to Support, posting a detailed support request, then opening up a live chat window and ask for immediate help, referencing the ID of the request. It took 2 chats, but my DNS issue was fixed about 10 minutes after the second chat.

First impression: Very impressive! In fact, I'm ready to bookmark it for regular visits! Your post 15 feet away may be a new variant on autostereograms. Right now, I have acute retinitis in one eye, and the autostereograms provide a useful tool to determine the pace of recovery. (Even though one eye has 20-20 vision, while the other has 20-50, my brain can resolve the 3-D images in autostereograms!) I'll see if I can quantify "15 feet" for each eye and determine the changes in resolution in my bad eye. I've been trying to get to SpreadFirefox for an hour now, and all I get is "The connection was reset." I can get to Mozilla Europe and Mozilla Japan, but neither of them have Ff3. Thanks for the reminder, but it looks like Mozilla doesn't have the server farm it needs! Wrong! Japan has it! You just have to figure out which Kanji means "downroad." I've got it! Now I need to try installing and see if I can persuade it to switch to English! Anyway, try Mozilla.jp and see what you get. Click on the link directly above the number "2" in the right-center of the web page. It should count in Mozilla's statistics whether or not you can use it. That website is really interesting: I downloaded Ff3 twice from the Japan website. One came from a .jp website, but the other came from a .fr (French) website! Even more, I have the website from the link I just gave you in Ff2 browsers in two computers. One shows a page with 4 numbered graphics showing how to install Firefox. On the other computer (which has NoScript running) the web page has 6 buttons, 3 for Ff3, 3 for FF2; each letting you pick Win, Lin or Mac. Obviously, their server knows whether I have Javascript enabled, and serves up very different pages in these two cases. OK. Now Europe is up at Mozilla-europe and it has an English (British) version available. I also think I've figured out why the pages may be different on two computers (besides Javascript). The second computer has a lot more security stuff on it. The type of browser I'm using may be hidden from the Mozilla servers. Anyway, great job on Chaos Lab! Update: The Mozilla Firefox Fully Localized Versions web page is up, has FF3, and is very responsive. Get it there! It looks like they don't have deep support for the promotional website that solicited promises to download. Once we go to the normal places, it's available!

Two suggestions, both of which require some work. 1. Do you have Knoppix? At least as of 5.1.1, Knoppix included Nessus. Do Kicker | KNOPPIX | Utilities, and see if "Nessus Security Scanner" is an option. Caveats: there is a learning curve for using it, and if you uncheck "Safe checks" on the "Scan Options" tab, you'd better have a complete system backup, because it will try destructive penetrations! More information on Nessus is here. There is also a Wikipedia page for it. 2. Shields-Up is a helpful, free way of testing port security. There's a lot there, so it is worth taking some time to explore it. There are complete custom Linux distributions devoted to analyzing vulnerabilities, but that requires you to dedicate one of your computers to hosting it. (Don't try this in a virtual machine!) They are almost certainly not worth the time it would take you to learn the details of how to use them, unless you plan on making a profession of computer security.

It would be nice to know a bit more about how credits are calculated. I get a reasonable number of credits for a long post, but something half as long seems to get less than half the credits, if it is posted the same day. I'm guessing you are better off posting at periodic intervals, and get less credit if you post many times on the same day. I have not yet figured out what parameters of posts to track, in order to "reverse-engineer" the credit algorithm. Any suggestions?

Occasionally, I have a late-model windows system that I really don't want to have access to the network. To make that happen, I go into the Device Manager and uninstall the device, then start the the hardware wizard and let it autodetect any uninstalled devices. When it finds it, I manually override its driver selection, and make it something like a tape drive, which means the driver will never get the interrupts it is looking for.You'll get warnings when you do it, but Windows will let you do this if you really insist. If it causes you a problem (I've never had one), just leave it uninstalled. You will get an offer to install it at bootup, but just cancel it.

Occasionally, I have a late-model windows system that I really don't want to have access to the network. To make that happen, I go into the Device Manager and uninstall the device, the the hardware wizard and let it autodetect any uninstalled devices. When it finds it, I manually override its driver selection, and make it something like a tape drive, which means the driver will never get the interrupts it is looking for.You'll get warnings when you do it, but Windows will let you do this if you really insist. If it causes you a problem (I've never had one), just leave it uninstalled. You will get an offer to install it at bootup, but just cancel it.

You folks have such limited imaginations (and knowledge of computer history)! One of the really early text-based games is Adventure!, originally by Willy Crowther. Now it is known as Crowther and Woods 'Colossal Cave Adventure' game. This is a true 3D adventure, because the "Colossal Cave" mentioned by the game Adventure is a reference to an actual cave within the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky. However, the game is not actually based on that cave, but is instead a remarkably faithful reproduction of nearby Bedquilt Cave. I played the game from the original FORTRAN source, and had to examine the source more than once to figure out how to make use of the myriad "clues" in the game. Anyway, I once constructed a 3D model of the cave to help me work out the connectivity of many parts of the labyrinth! You have no idea what you are missing if you haven't ever played one of these games. Compared with modern 3D GUI games, it is like reading the book instead of watching the movie! Your imagination gets to construct models that can be much more creative than what is provided by the animator and GUI illustrator. There is a download website here. Have at it!

The cleanest solution I have found to "get the copper onto the internet" is the Linksys SPA-3102. I have discussed this and other VoIP-related things here. If you persevere to the bottom of that post, you will find details that are relevant to Asterisk.

WordPress is very easy to install. Because of that, versions before 3.5 were found to have major security holes, that are widely known among hackers. Make sure you have 3.5 or 3.5.1 when you restore your website!

Thanks, folks, for all the links on VoIP options. I have a "background task" going on, to improve my phone access. I have a Lingo VoIP account, 500 minutes/month, which is quoted at $14.95/month but bills at about $21/month after taxes, etc. get added. I also have a Tracfone prepaid cell that works out to $8.83/month for 600 minutes/YEAR, of which I typically use about 250 minutes/year. I also have Qwest, but I'm presently in a big fight with them -- I took a "free trial" of their DSL service. It sucked, so I turned it back off within the free trial period, and sent back the modem. (I have a receipt from one of their reps.) They claim I never returned the modem, billed me for it, and shut off my landline service when I wouldn't pay for the modem. The local Utility Commission and Better Business Bureau are currently in the loop. Anyway, after a couple of months of trying to sort out how VoIP works, I have come to the conclusion that the complexity is comparable to networking Linux. I now have two SIP boxes: a D-Link DVG-1402S and a Linksys SPA-3102, each for about $60. I bought the 1402 because it had good reviews on the internet. I didn't notice that the date of the reviews was 2004 and 2005. This technology is changing fast! After I received it, I went looking for how to set it up. Figuring out how to "provision" them so they can make and receive calls has proved to be very complex. What is now a purely PC-based service used to be called SIPPhone and provided instructions, and firmware downloads for the 1402S. Unfortunately, the links to the downloads are now broken, and the bulletin board posts are frozen. Anyway, looking through the posts, I learned that if the owner of the box was not very careful (changing options and default passwords, etc.), a service provider could easily download their firmware into your box and "lock" it to their service. There is both http and ftp access to the box, but only the ftp access can download firmware, and there is no (documented) command for uploading, or backing up, a copy of the firmware. Even resetting the box to "factory conditions" does not reset the firmware! When I initially signed up for Lingo (at least 6 years ago), I got a free box that connected to the internet and my computers and phone. At that time, I was given an ID and password that gave me access to the http setup pages. Recently, the ID and password stopped working. Even more recently, it stopped accepting http access from downstream (my computer), and stopped passing internet service through to my computers. I'm guessing a hacker found the box from the internet and took it over. (Privacy anyone?) My computers are protected by a firewall. I had sent multiple emails about this to Lingo, and was ignored, so I escalated my complaint and talked to a live person in Tech Support. To their credit, they had a much more recent replacement box in the mail by overnight service that day. The box they sent is a Linksys SPA-2102. It came with ZERO instructions. Just plug it into the power, internet, phone and computers, I guess. Except that didn't work. They explained they were updating some server software. Try again in a few days, please! The link I just gave gets you to documentation, if your're interested. The unlocked box comes with both "User" and "Administrator" IDs, and empty passwords. The Lingo box has the Administrator pages password protected. Anyway, Lingo phone service is still available to me through the old box, with it now behind my router so that my computers can access the internet without going through it. The Linksys SPA-3102 (unlocked) which I bought most recently, is a very interesting device, according to its specs. It has 5 connectors on the back: power, internet (WAN), downstream (Ethernet), phone and line. It came with a "Quick Install" manual, telling what to plug in where, and no other documentation. Again, manuals are available from the link. It can be "provisioned" with 4 different VoIP providers, and dialing a phone number preceded by "*" plus a numeric code lets you pick which provider you want to use. Also, if there is a power failure, the phone "falls over" to the line, so you continue having phone service without having to move any plugs if the power fails in your house. Smart, eh? This is an example of good fault-tolerant engineering. Just make sure you have a phone in your house that doesn't need power! Anyway, among the references mentioned in this thread, Internetcalls.com is out of beta, has free calling to an amazing number of countries, and even has free SMS messaging. Since I have a son who uses SMS 100:1 over voice, that sounds like a winner! To top it off, they have instructions on how to configure the 3102 for their service! Finally, I haven't used Asterisk yet (I have downloaded it), but from what I have learned, the challenges with it are to learn how to write Dial-Plan strings (how to tell the software to interpret *123 202 555 1212) and configuring both the software and a SIP box to talk to each other. Voxilla has detailed instructions on how to write Dial-Plan strings. It also has a Wizard that automates setting up the 3102 for Asterisk! As you can see, it takes a lot of homework to get into really low-cost VoIP without getting burned. I expect that in a month or so I will be able to report on what actually works!