I hear that some places around the world have banned plastic bags. Vancouver is not included in this, however some stores such as Whole Foods have voluntarily quit giving them out. Others charge for bags to encourage customers to bring their own. And when you think about how many plastic bags probably end up in the trash, I think it's a great idea! So I, being relatively environmentally conscious, bring a reusable bag for my shopping as much as possible.

Of course, me being Mango, and thus more than relatively eccentric, I take things a bit farther than that.

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In Simply Accounting, the Session Date is used for default dates of transactions.  When one creates, for example, an invoice, the date is automatically assumed to be whatever the Session Date is.  We've found no way to change the default of the Session Date from within Simply, but this can be accomplished by this handy script.

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Over the past few weeks we've been testing the Microsoft ComfortCurve Keyboard 2000 and we love it!  Its keys are nice and responsive, it's comfortable to use, and its buttons are in very intuitive places.  The best part is it's practically a steal - we've seen it for as low as $15.  It has only one minor flaw which is that there are very few multimedia buttons.  There are play/pause, volume up/down, and mute.  But there are no buttons for stop, previous, or next.

There were however browser Back/Forward buttons.  And we never use the mute button.  For some reason, SharpKeys, which we've used in the past wouldn't do the job.  The keyboard came with software called IntelliType but it used a great deal of RAM and, oddly, slowed down our cursor a great deal.  No matter.  This is an excellent excuse to point out again just how much we like AutoHotkey.

A company called Targus makes remote controls designed for use with PowerPoint presentations.  They allow you to control your presentation from some distance away from the actual computer running the show.

While this sounds like a great idea in theory, in practice these remotes are BEYOND frustrating.  The reason is that there are too many buttons, and pressing the wrong button at the wrong time will make the presentation quit working.  And no matter how carefully we instruct the presenter to recover from such incidents, ("If everything stops working press this button labeled Magic Fix-It Button!") ostensibly they will forget.  Every.  Single.  Time.

These buttons, they must be disabled.

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At Mango's day job, he operates a mailing list for his customers.  Approximately 2,000 customers have subscribed to it.  He wanted to set up test email accounts with various webmail providers to be sure his emails arrived as intended.  But which webmail providers should he choose?  The most popular email providers were easily found with this MySQL query:
For our list, the results were:

Major regional ISPs - 39%
Hotmail - 14%
Yahoo - 9%
Gmail - 8%
AOL - 1%

The remaining 29% consisted of small ISPs and insignificant webmail providers, each less than 1% of the total.

Everyone seems to have their list of free Windows applications they can't do without, and here's ours.  All of these are free for the download and their authors deserve a serious hat tip for all of their excellent work.  We list them in alphabetical order:

AutoHotkey
AutoHotkey is the quintessential keystroke and mouse automator that you really must try to see just how powerful it is.  You can automate almost any program by sending it keystrokes and mouse clicks.  You can remap keys on your keyboard or mouse.  One of our favourite features is that you may compile your finished script into a single EXE that may be run on any Windows computer.

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We've always wanted to be able to set up Joomla to automatically add a "Read More" link for articles in Category Blog or Section Blog Layouts so that the articles would all be the same length and they would line up just as pretty as you please.  Google revealed a handful of other people attempting the same thing, but having no solution.  So Mango wrote a plugin for it.

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We like Shaw Digital Phone a lot. Shaw Digital Phone is an implementation of VoIP that is run over Shaw's private network, separate from the Internet.  Shaw's reps actively deny that their service is VoIP - we suspect they want to differentiate themselves from providers of broadband VoIP.  This is perhaps with good reason. Because Shaw Digital Phone doesn't run over the Internet, typical VoIP issues caused by latency, bandwidth sharing, and internet outages are entirely eliminated.

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In a previous article, we wrote about how to build a call recorder out of Asterisk.  Simply conference in the call recorder's extension and Asterisk will record your conversation to a ulaw file.  It is possible for Asterisk to record in wav format but that requires more system resources.  Fortunately, there's a very easy way to convert ulaw files to wav format.  That is by using a program called SoX.  SoX is an open source command line utility for converting many types of audio formats.

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We have a PBX for home use because we want our telephones to have features that are not common or simply not available from any phone provider.  Some of these features include termination failover, custom incoming Caller ID, and call recording.  In this guide we will show you how to configure Asterisk for use as a home PBX.  If you are building a PBX for a small or home office you will likely use many of the same techniques.

If you do not yet own an Asterisk PBX, there are several ways you may get one.  You can build one out of an old PC you have lying around, or if you'd prefer a low-cost, low-power Asterisk server that is also a 4-port router, read our other article about How to Install Asterisk on an Asus WL-520GU Router.

Once you have Asterisk installed on your hardware of choice, read on to find out how we configured ours.

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Yes, you read right.  For this project, we're going to tell you how we built a fully functioning Asterisk PBX out of a $25 router.  We designed this project because we wanted an Asterisk server for use as a home PBX that could be built relatively easily, used as little power as possible, and cost as little as possible.  The best part is, a lot of the heavy lifting such as compiling Asterisk has already been done for us.  All we need to do is install it.

The first version of this article was published on the VoIP Tech Chat forum in August 2009.  The article that you are reading right now is the latest version.  The forum no longer allows us to edit the original post so we have moved it here.

A common question people ask is, "Why do you need a PBX for your home?"  The answer is we wanted telephone features that we haven't been able to find for a price we're willing to pay.  Now, we can have nearly any feature we want.  Some of these include termination failover, custom incoming Caller ID, and call recording.  The best part is that when we're done, the device will still function as a router.  You won't even need to wedge another AC adapter into your power strip.

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With the growing popularity of VoIP, more and more homes and businesses do not have a POTS (plain old telephone service) line.  VoIP is excellent technology for voice calls (hence the letter "V" in "VoIP") but that's about all it's good for.

Finding a reliable fax solution was interesting to say the least.  Most people we asked for advice told us, "Faxing is archaic technology.  Forget that and use e-mail instead!"  We certainly rarely send faxes, but as long as our customers wish to fax in orders, we are going to need a reliable way of receiving them.  Now, we've found one!

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We were trying to solve an annoying bug in our mod_rewrite code today and couldn't quite figure out why our server was acting the way it was.  Fortunately we discovered Web-Sniffer.net.  Web-Sniffer.net allows you to view the HTTP request and response headers for any URL you like.  You can even choose between HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/1.0, with and without the Host header.

View HTTP Headers

The best part is that this is much easier than messing about with Telnet.exe!

The question of VoIP security often comes up on various VoIP forums, and it's a good one.  Could someone be listening to your conversation?  While it's theoretically possible, here are a few security tips that will help keep your network secure.

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Christmas music is one of our weaknesses and every year we seem to find one or two songs that we just can't stop listening to.  Most of these have actually been around for a while but we hadn't heard them until recently.  Here they are, in no particular order:

S Club 8 - Sleigh Ride (YouTube)

Amy Grant - I Need a Silent Night (YouTube)

Josh Groban - Thankful (YouTube)

Wilson Philips - Hey Santa (YouTube)

Dana - It's Gonna Be A Cold Cold Christmas (YouTube)

Chris Rea - Driving Home for Christmas (YouTube)

Big Daddy Weave - Go Tell It On The Mountain (YouTube)

David Foster - The Christmas Season (YouTube)

A friend and her husband recently returned from a wedding with one of the best favours we'd ever seen: a strip of photos that appeared to have come from a photo booth.  But, they were unlike any photo booth photos we'd ever seen: the lighting was textbook, the images sharp and clear, and the colours as good as any professional photograph.  The reason was...that they were professional photographs.  The wedding photographer set up a booth and invited the guests to have their picture taken.

What a fantastic idea.  We simply had to build one.

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We are not just kidding.

Thanks to some very fine folks who have worked very hard on replacement firmware for Linux-based routers, the above statement is a reality.  We used to use a Cisco RV042 router which we purchased for over $200, and we haven't even had it powered up since we completed this project.

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We always seem to want to convert various forms of measurements to some other various forms of measurements.  We used to have bookmarks for every conversion necessary: one for distance, one for weight, one for currency, and so on.  Then, Mango discovered Google Calculator.  Google has outdone itself and created the easiest conversion tool we've ever seen.  You simply write your conversion in plain English into the Google search box.  And with Firefox, the Google search box is just a CTRL+K away.

Examples follow.

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Instead of using a customary ATA to convert legacy telephones or PBX equipment, some users of VoIP prefer to use a "pure IP" system and use IP phones.  There are advantages to both methods.

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Need to purchase an ATA or other piece of VoIP hardware?  There are plenty of retailers around.  Canadians may wish to use Shopbot.ca to find the best price at a Canadian retailer.  Americans may use Froogle or similar.  Does a deal sound too good to be true?  Maybe it is.  Be sure to check the retailer out on a site such as ResellerRatings.com.  If you don't feel like buying from a particular retailer, reputable retailers such as Netlink Computers/NCIX will often price match in stock items from other online retailers.  If you don't require a new unit, you can often find VoIP hardware on Craigslist.  Be sure to test these items before purchasing.  Sometimes, hardware is locked to a specific provider.  Unfortunately, there are a great deal of counterfeit VoIP devices on eBay (many from Asia) and via 3rd-party sellers on Amazon.  We suggest not buying from overseas and ensuring that your seller has a return policy.

For some information about how to detect counterfeit VoIP hardware, check out this post at DSLReports.com.

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Here are six "notify" sound effects that Mango made for use in an application, free for the download.

Recently we were attempting to build a DVD with Adobe Encore CS3.  Due to Encore's oddities, it took two days to figure out how to do it.  We look forward to the day when Adobe's video editing software will reach the same caliber as its industry standard Photoshop.  Perhaps at this point mentioning "I use Premiere" at a professionals' meeting won't be met with stifled giggling.

Until then, here's how we solved two most notable quirks.  The first was an error message that occurred upon build that went along the lines of: PGC "xxxx" has an error at xx:xx:xx:xy internal software error : %0, line xxxx - PGCINFO: name= xxxx, ref=BPGC, time=xx:xx:xx:xy

This error referenced a point on the timeline approximately one second from the end of the clip.  The last second wasn't significant so we simply trimmed the last second from the clip.  The error then referenced a point on the timeline TWO seconds from the end of the clip.  This was frustrating.

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1. Never use Register Globals.  Ever.  And if you ever even THINK of using Register Globals, and we find out, Mango is going to send someone over to your house to kick your ass.  Are we clear?
   
   
   As much as we love working with PHP, Register Globals is something that should be filed under "Monumentally Bad Ideas".  And unfortunately, it's something that, at first glance, appears convenient.  If a user submits a form to a PHP script with Register Globals enabled, the script will create a variable for each form element.  However, keep in mind that this allows your end users to set any variable in your script that they like.  Here is a common mistake that we see:
   

   if ($logged_in) { secret_functions_allow(); }

   In a situation like this, the author has first run some code to see if the user is logged in or not.  If so, the script will have defined the $logged_in variable.  When the above line of code fires, it will provide the user with some functions only availble to authenticated users.  Innocent enough, yes?  However, to "hack" this, all that a malicious user would need to do is form a URL like http://www.example.com/?logged_in=1.  To turn off Register Globals, add php_flag register_globals off to .htaccess or register_globals = Off to php.ini.  Many administrators ban use of Register Globals entirely, so by developing without it, your script will be more portable.  This is a good thing.

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The latest techniques we've been playing with involve using a PHP script on our server in Michigan to print to a remote printer at our office in Vancouver.  In the past we've done this by generating an XHTML document with high-resolution images and simply prompting the user to print it.  This worked, but if any sort of precision was required, the user had to configure their browser's page setup just so, and to make things even more difficult, different browsers required different settings.

Enter PostScript, a language understood by many laser printers.  With PostScript, we can go directly from our script to the printer, (pipe the finished PostScript document to the printer on port 9100) eliminating the stop off at the browser.  And, we can position things on our page with as much precision as necessary.

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When we're writing software, we always seem to use a few functions for quick conversions.  We've got a series of converters bookmarked, but today we were thinking it would be even more handy to have everything all in one place.  So we developed the Converters for Webmasters bookmarklet.

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