Erratic Ringing for PAP2T-NA and SPA-2102 Phone Adapters

I thought I’d pass along a tip for people with Cisco/Linksys PAP2T-NA or SPA-2102/3102 phone adapters.  I was having difficulties the phone ring tone on a PAP2T-NA being erratic (which can be heard in the file “DefaultRing.mp3”).  It was especially noticeable to the customer as they had their phone connected to a loud ringer and the fluctuation in sound was amplified.

After some research on the Internet I found that this can be controlled somewhat by the ATA itself.  If you go into the Advanced Settings as the Administrator User, under “Regional Settings” you’ll find this section.  Below are the defaults:

I found that if you changed the Waveform, Voltage and Frequency to Sinusoid, 90 and 25 (Waveform, Voltage, Frequency) it had a dramatic effect on the sound of the ring.  This can be heard in the file named “DefaultRing-Sinusoid-90V-25Freq.mp3”.

Windows Server 2012

If you aren't a techie, you might not understand why so many of us are probably salivating and being giddy.  Well Microsoft has released (yesterday) the latest version of its Server operating system, Windows Server 2012.  I'm not going to rehash any details other sites may cover, so I'll just direct you to Ars Technica's First Look.

Dial Plans for an SPA8000

It's been a while since I've posted anything to this blog, but I want to change that.  Here is an issue that dogged me for a bit with a customer of mine, which I thought I'd share the resolution for.

My customer who'd ordered a SIP trunk to replace their copper telephone lines, had an older Meridian Telephone System.  This system didn't support the configuration of a SIP trunk directly.  My solution was to use a SPA-8000, an 8-port IP Telephony Gateway from Cisco/Linksys.

Five reasons Android (CTRL+H Android --> Blackberry) is superior to the iPhone

I subscribe to many of the newletters that the TechRepublic puts out.  Often they are more fluff than anything, but occasionally there's a very interesting article and makes the endless e-mails worthwhile.  I received one today with an article titled "Five reasons Android is superior to the iPhone".  Jack Wallen lays out 5 reasons reasonably well, but I couldn't help think that you could say the exact same for Blackberry devices....

NIC Teaming with Microsoft's Hyper-V

I've long been a user of VMware's products.  I had my first experiences with VMware ESX way back in 2004, when I took the VCP course and received my first certification.  At the time, ESX was the gold standard in virtualization and over the years it has constantly evolved.  Microsoft had its own Virtualization product which has now evolved into what we now call Hyper-V.  I've never used Hyper-V until recently.  One of my first challenges when installing Hyper-V was getting NIC teaming to work.  Read on for more!

PuTTY v0.61 Released

After 4 years of development, Simon Tatham has announced that PuTTY v0.61 has been released.  If you haven't used PuTTY before, you've probably never done any kind of tech support and you're probably not reading my blog either.

Obviously there are many new features and bug fixes, but one of the nicer additions is support for Windows 7 Jump lists.

Windows 7 Jump Lists

So what are you waiting for?  Download it!

What would you like in a Video Game Conference?

You know what we're missing in Toronto?  A good Video Game Convention/Conference/Expo.  Toronto could easily host an E3, Game Developer Conference, PAX type event.  We have many great video game developers right here in Toronto, and many more in Canada.

An associate of mine would like to start one, a good one, right here in Toronto, and he has the experience and expertise to make it happen.  But, what we would like to do is solicit feedback about what makes a good conference and what doesn't.  So, be you a developer, gamer, or distributor, drop me a line and we'll chat!