from Chips to Chips

ok ok, so this is really not at all keeping up to trying to post regularly. Got too busy, had a baby, etc.. excuses.

Now, I have a great reason to post!! I just finished a little pet project, tiny one.. but I’m quite excited about it as it’s something I’ve tried to do over 10 years ago, but the products were bad. Now, with newer hardware and software it’s a reality!

I had just succeeded to build my home SIP infrastructure. With a SIP client on my iPhone, I can connect to my personal PBX server, and make calls to regular phones via a SIP to PSTN router.

You are lost? I just built my own VOIP system, which I can make data calls over the air, from my iPhone, connect to my home based VOIP system, and call to a land line. What’s so big deal about that? Here in Singapore, the digital land lines are completely toll free! All outgoing LOCAL calls are free. With 3G and 10GB of quota a month, I can make a lot of phone calls this way!

I will share how I did it… and boy, it’s not easy. This setup is not for the faint hearted to even attempt to consider. Leave it to the real IT geeks *cough*

Here’s a glimpse on what you’ll need.

1. Home broadband connection which has preferably unlimited usage (as we get here in Singapore)
   +the broadband connection must always be up (otherwise you cannot connect from outside of your home)
2. Home wifi  network, if you want to make calls via your SIP client in the smartphone
3. A Linksys SPA 3102 (retailing for about S$100 in Singapore) – this is a VOIP Router
4. Asterisk - a free PBX Server – run this on an old PC, or a small atom machine, or a virtual machine
   (I run mine as a VMware Virtual Machine)
5. A SIP client for your PC and/or smartphone
   PC – A good and free SIP client called X-Lite (http://www.counterpath.com/x-lite.html)
   iOS – many choices available, free and paid I use the free client from 3CX (http://www.3cx.com/VOIP/voip-phone.html)

Generally, each item is easy to get up and running, but to get them working together was not easy, especially when you don’t understand half the terms involved. This is one of the craziest situations where I was looking at pages of configuration items and they are mostly abbreviated.

In addition, there are few up to date guides on the net which tells you what to do. I found lots of guides for Asterisk, some very good, but are for older versions. I’m using version 1.8, and there are lots that are now redundant. After all I’ve done to get things to work, I must say it’s actually not a lot of settings we need to make.

Credits will be given when due. I will link to the sites which I found the most useful information.

The first question I had was, where’s the app for iMessage? I was thinking that there could be a dedicated app, and it’ll probably function like having another “whatsapp” like function. I was wrong. In face, iMessage is integrated into the orignal “Message” app. Yes, the one you use for SMS and MMS.

So, how to start using it? There are 2 parts to it. Part 1 is to setup your iOS device, and part 2 is how to send an iMessage.

Part 1 – go to settings, messages, then look at addresses. These are what your friends and contacts will use to send iMessage to you, as a form of identification (like a userid). By default, your mobile number will be one of them, and the other is the iTunes or iCloud account you used when your first setup iOS5. You can add or change more contact information. e.g. your work email address. Add all the form of “identification” you want and save it.

Part 2 – just launch messages, and here’s the cool bit. Just add the contact you like to send a text to. The app will then do a check if the recipient is already registered with iMessages. Remember what you did in Part 1? The recipient’s contact information in your phone book will be used to check for iMessage “compatibility”. If yes, your “send” button will turn blue, and the text box will have a faint “iMessage” word, otherwise it will have a faint “text message”, and the “send” button will be green.

It’s that simple!

Now, I’m just a little curious about the warning that popped up once or twice to warn of carrier charges for sms sent to activate iMessage. I wonder how many messages will that consume.

I didn’t stay up to catch the Apple WWDC, but it’s the first thing I checked out when I woke up today. One of the new features which has got all my thumbs up is the ability for your devices to automatically download purchased content. More details is in this Mac Rumors posting.

I haven’t tested this yet, but what I believe it’s suppose to do is this; Say you have an iPhone and an iPad. If you’ve purchased  content, Music/App/Book, from the Apple Stores, it will automatically make it available on both devices. That sure takes the hassle out to trying to keep both devices in sync.

Without this, I’ve been maintaining synchronization using iTunes, or just manual re-download. Now it’s all automatic! That’s cool!

The best part, you don’t need to wait for IOS5, all you need is the currently available IOS 4.3!

GLWG! Came across this really fun turn based strategy game 2 days ago. The iPhone version was going for free, and the iPad (HD) version was $0.99. I bought both!

Did I say this is a War Game?

It’s turned base; you make your moves, then the AI moves. Each of your units get to move and attack (if in range) every turn. There are some advantages you gain from going on to high ground, or travel further by riding in a vehicle.

When you attack, the opponent automatically retaliates, if it survives.

Very addictive! Check it out!

I’ve been working on deploying several large VMware environment lately. What has been very helpful to me is my iPad equipped with PDF Expert [iTunes].

It was one of the first few apps I bought on my iPad, and it is one of my best investments.

It supports PDF (duh), docx, xlsx, and more. But I primarily use it to refer to PDF documents. What’s really good about it is beyond fundamental book reader (for that, iBooks will do just fine).

It’s the ability to be able to annotate the pdf document… e.g. highlight, underline, strikeout, notes, add text and more. I can make corrections to the document, so that when I get back to my PC, I have an easy reference. Bookmarks are automatically placed when I annotate, so it’s easy for me to search later on.

What’s also cool is the ability for the app to send out the corrected pdf with either the annotations all flattened on to the doc, or still kept separate.

This app to me allows me to completely replace PDF print outs and scribbling corrections.

To up the ante, a recent update (can’t remember when), there has been new integration which allows you to connect to multiple DropBox accounts to download, and even sync!

I do recommend it to anyone looking for a tool that does this.

Song Exporter Pro showed up in my list of top free apps on the weekend of 30th April 2011. It’s a very neat tool which allows someone to share or “export” the music off the iPod library in the iPhone. (I think it will also work with iPod Touch and iPad, but haven’t tested it).

This is the answer a question I get frequently. How can we copy music from an iPhone to a computer. It used to be never, unless you use some specialized tools to do it. Now, it’s very easy, lauch Song Exporter Pro, select the songs you want to share, and connect to Wifi. Then, go to the computer you want to copy the music to, open the browser and point it to the IP address of the iPhone (it will be listed in the app). You’ll be presented with a nice web page that allows you to easily download the songs.

This is a nice handy tool which allows you to transfer your songs easily to your other computers direct from the iPhone.