VOIP Users Conference

Introduction

The conference/podcast (formerly called Asterisk Users Conference) is a place to meet, exchange ideas, listen to experienced users, ask questions, get answers, and be an active member of the Asterisk community. The conference is meant to be open to all levels of asterisk expertise from total beginner to experienced developer. The idea is to share knowledge, to bring new people into the community and to promote this open software gem created by Mark Spencer. You can participate live during the conference or it’s available in recorded form 24/7.

Schedule

The Conference is Live Fridays at 12:00 PM Eastern Time / 17:00 UTC

Regardless of Daylight Time, you can see the start time of the next live VUC in your time zone via Permatime (http://vuc.me/next).

Format

The conference is a tool for the community and is meant to be relevant to all those who listen and participate. To that end, the format is usually very loose. There are often topics that are planned for the day but if the participants want to see another topic covered or a certain question posed then the conference will go in that direction.

There are certain conferences where a guest is scheduled to speak on a product or technology (see below for a list of previous guests). During these conferences the topic is a little more defined but there is most often time remaining to cover other topics.

In addition, much discussion happens before the show begins and after the show has ended. You may want to consider joining the conference a few minutes early and staying on after the recording has stopped.

To Participate

During conference hours, connect via ZipDX.com or see main VUC web site for instructions.

PSTN

+1 567 252 2286
iNum: +883 5100 123 94882

If asked, enter conference 200901

SIP

sip:[email protected]

If possible, please use g722 wideband CODEC. Otherwise, the accepted CODEC will be g711

Skype

During conference hours, call skype:vuc.me or use the widget that appears on the VUC Home Page just before start time.

SIP from extensions.conf

If you add the following lines to your extensions.conf then you will have an extension within Asterisk that you can call in order to connect with the conference and you won’t even have to remember the show ID or your PIN.

; In extensions.conf: define your PIN and the show id

[globals]
MY_PIN=0123456789 ; whatever 10-digit pin you register at Talkshoe.com

;;; I’m told you can try any single digit 10 times as a temporary ID, e.g. 2222222222 or 6666666666.
;;; However, this makes it hard for me to see who’s there to call on you
;;; It would be great of people would create Talkshoe accounts and use names we can call on to speak.
;;; Either their IRC pseudos, company names or name/initial like
;;; Digium_guys, Steve_S, f_williams, Zeeek, russellb

CONFERENCE_CODE=22622 ; asterisk users conference Talkshoe show ID

ASTERISK_USERS_CONFERENCE=1234 ; whatever extension you want to use to reach the conference

; Put the extension in a context, such as “talkshoe”
; (and make sure the context is included in a context you are going to dial from)

[talkshoe]
exten => ${ASTERISK_USERS_CONFERENCE},1,Dial(SIP/[email protected],60,D(${CONFERENCE_CODE}#{MY_PIN}#))

Talkshoe Console

NO LONGER RECOMMENDED – connect via ZipDX.com – see http://vuc.me for details

Talkshoe has a Java console application that you can use to listen to the conference as well as speak with others in the conference. The Talkshoe console application also has a text chat feature that can be used to chat with others who are also using the console application. One thing to be aware of if using the text chat feature is that there users on the conference who do not use the Talkshoe console and cannot see what you type in the chat window. You may want to consider using IRC (see below).

IRC

Since not everyone has the ability to run the Talkshoe console we also make use of IRC for text chat.

Server: irc.freenode.net
Channel: #vuc

Past Guests

• Mark Spencer
• Several Digium staffers
• Trixbox
• Lumenvox
• Teliax
• Nufone
• Adhearsion
• Cognation
• Voicepulse
• FWD
• John Todd, Freenum.org

Archives

Even though all shows are archived it is certainly no replacement for being an active participant in the conference. While you can learn a great deal by listening to the shows in the archive you lose the benefits of actually being able to ask questions and participate actively in this valuable forum. We understand that you cannot be at every conference and that is why we have tried to make it as easy as possible to catch up on what you missed.

All shows are archived and can be downloaded or played using several different methods.

The RSS Feed which is perfect for your media player such as iTunes.

Mailing List

There is a mailing list for the Conference on Google Groups.

The purpose of this group is to:

• Provide notes of interest such as site URLs or names of products, companies or people to contact regarding a subject discussed
• Solicit ideas and comments about what you would like see covered in future conferences
• Announce subjects to be discussed in future conferences

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See Also

• VOIP Users Conference – More information about the conference