Visual Studio

Some PBX integrations can be particularly tricky, especially when they are legacy PBX is multiple versions behind the current releases or the hardware is failing. It reminds me a little bit of some of the old Exchange 5.5 and Novell migrations I have done in the past, except in a different kind of environment. On a good note, you eventually become pretty knowledgeable about different PBX systems and their quirks, and how to work through them the best you can.

With that said, I stumbled upon a particularly interesting blog post by a MS employee about using the MSPL scripting language to manipulate SIP packets and fake a 180 ring back. Ultimately, the ideal fix is to get the existing PBX to do the right thing, but sometimes that is not always a viable option.

Read about the ring back workaround here.

In the upcoming months, I'm going to dig more into MSPL and see exactly how creative you can get with this language. It could prove to be very handy for problematic/buggy SIP implementations or as a stop-gap measure to work around something that OCS normally cannot handle. I'm thinking of situations where you need to do something special/different between the mediation server and the PBX gateway to make things work correctly.

Of course, keep in mind any custom made scripts you deploy will be the first things that Microsoft PSS will want to disable in a troubleshooting scenario. It definitely would put you into an 'unsupported' scenario.

I've been known to be a bit of a 'chronic tinkerer', which if you think of in health terms, sounds rather disturbing.
I'm referring to my habit of finding new ways to use tools or devices in ways they weren't originally designed for.
Our home's wireless network infrastructure and internet connectivity are shining examples of these mad scientist experiments.

This trend continues with the box that is sitting in front of me: The eBox-3300-JSK, as part of the Microsoft Sparks will Fly contest.

My daughters like working on projects with Dad whenever possible, especially if it involves computers or animals. It doesn't surprise me too much based on our household. My youngest daughter (now 5 years old) completely "owned" her computer in 2008, much to my chagrin. My oldest daughter (almost 8 years old) was showing me map exploit tricks to use in a popular XBox 360/PC zombie game this past weekend.

In an effort to put that kind of knowledge/curiosity to good use, we're going to build an embedded solution for our chickens. It will involve webcams, internet connectivity, motion detection and servos. I am mostly going to use items that are around the house, due to budget and time constraints. My free time to work on this in the short term will be limited, but I have some good ideas to run with. I like to dabble in programming when it isn't part of my regular job, so this will be fun.

In a somewhat related topic, I have some articles/postings coming up in the near future once work and life settles down a bit.