Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Dec 06
New version 0.1.3 of Tropo-webapi-python: Build Tropo voice/SMS/IM/Twitter apps using python
My former colleague Justin Dupree just posted a new version of the Tropo-webapi-python package to Pypi at:
To install the package, assuming you have pip installed, you should be able to just type:
pip install tropo-webapi-python
and then you can get started building Tropo applications that use voice, SMS, IM or Twitter as channels to communicate with people. The documentation for the Tropo WebAPI provides a full explanation of the API and also sample applications. Samples are also provided in the distribution.
The “tropo-webapi-python” package lives on Github at:
and those of you wanting to live on the edge can simply clone the repository from Github and use it there.
I’ll also mention that at this point I’ve completely stepped away from the maintenance of this ‘tropo-webapi-python’ package (as I’m no longer with Voxeo) and Justin and the Voxeo Labs team are now maintaining the package.
Have fun with it! I definitely enjoy creating Tropo apps using python!
Dec 05
What Is The Future of the PSTN? FCC Holding Workshops Dec 6th and 14th
As I recently wrote over on CircleID, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding two workshops on this topic of what comes next for the PSTN.
The first workshop, tomorrow, December 6, 2012, will cover "what obstacles and opportunities the transition may create regarding public safety, accessibility, and ubiquitous service".
The second workshop on December 14, 2012, will cover "a wide array of economic, technological, and policy issues that need to be addressed as consumers choose to subscribe to, and rely on, new technologies and services."
The FCC's Public Notice about these PSTN Transition Workshops contains information about how to attend, both in person and via the FCC's live stream at http://www.fcc.gov/live.
The meeting tomorrow will begin at 9:00 am US Eastern time.
If you are in the Washington, DC, area and able to get to these workshops, it may be a great opportunity to join with others in expressing to the FCC a vision for what we want for the post-PSTN communications infrastructure.
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
- following me on Twitter;
- adding me to a circle on Google+;
- subscribing to my email newsletter; or
- subscribing to the RSS feed
Dec 05
Borders, In Bankruptcy, Aims To Sell 65,536 IPv4 Addresses at $12/Address (Featured Blog)
With IPv4 address exhaustion upon us, it appears that the going market rate for IPv4 addresses is now $12/address. Over at the Register, Kevin Murphy reports on a bankruptcy filing from Borders seeking to sell a /16 block of to healthcare software vendor Cerner for a total of $786,432. At $12 per IPv4 address, this sets a new public record given that the previous high was Microsoft's acquisition of a block of Nortel IPv4 addresses... More...
Dec 02
Unix Turns 40 – And IEEE Provides a Historical Look Back
As the Unix operating system turns 40 this year, writer Warren Toomey published an excellent historical piece in this month’s IEEE spectrum:
The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix: The classic operating system turns 40, and its progeny abound
I’ve been using Unix myself in various forms since the mid-1980’s. Much of my time was, of course, spent in the land of Linux… but even now I’m writing this post on an operating system that evolved out of that early Unix work (Mac OS X).
It is very hard to understate the role that Unix has played in our technology history… and this post provides some nice stories from those early days.
Well worth a read… (I say while stroking my beard that is now definitely grey… 🙂
Dec 02
Today’s VUC Call – Philippine Phone Phreaking Funding Terrorists
For those interested in telecommunications security, today's (Dec 2, 2011) VoIP Users Conference (VUC) call at 12 noon US Eastern will cover the recent arrests of 4 Philippine men who defrauded AT&T of close to $2 million and were employed by an alleged terrorist organization who was using the proceeds of the scam to fund their activities.
Eric Klein of Humbug Labs will be the guest on the VUC call discussing this and other fraud issues. It should be an interesting discussion.
You can join the live call via SIP, Skype or the regular old PSTN. There is also an IRC backchannel that gets heavy usage during the call. It will be recorded so you can always listen later.
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
- following me on Twitter;
- adding me to a circle on Google+;
- subscribing to my email newsletter; or
- subscribing to the RSS feed
Dec 02
Philippine Phone Phreakers Arrested After Funding Terrorists
One of the big news items in telecom security this past week was the arrest in Manila of 4 men accused of defrauding AT&T of almost $2 million USD and then using those funds to finance a terrorist organization. The Philippine National Police issued a statement (annoyingly you have to scroll down to the “November 24, 2011″ entry) that explained the terrorist link:
Sosa said that Kwan and the other hackers in Manila were being used by the Zamir’s terrorists group to hack the trunk-line (PBX) of different telecommunication companies including the AT&T. Revenues derived from the hacking activities of the Filipino-based hackers were diverted to the account of the terrorists, who paid the Filipino hackers on a commission basis via local banks.
The joint operation between the Philippine Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the US FBI is per the statement a result of a long-standing effort within the FBI to combat this kind of fraud.
It’s not clear yet exactly how the fraud was perpetrated and whether or not there was any “VoIP” involved. Ars Technica, in a lengthy piece, “How Filipino phreakers turned PBX systems into cash machines for terrorists, indicates that the attackers used traditional attacks against PBXs to compromise voicemail systems that allow outbound calling (DISA) and then passed that list of compromised PBXs along to others who sold this access as a way to cheaply call into premium rate services (similar to 900-numbers in the US).
There’s also a note in the Ars Technica article that the attackers used good old default passwords to get into many of these PBXs. 
Assuming the prosecutions move forward we will hopefully learn more as the cases go to trial.
Regardless of the precise mechanism, it’s a great reminder that people need to check the traditional security mechanisms of their PBX systems, and REMOVE/CHANGE default passwords!
If you are interested in discussing this case, it will be the topic of today’s (Dec 2, 2011) Voip Users Conference (VUC) call at 12 noon US Eastern. All are welcome to join – or to listen to the conversation later once the recording is posted.
Dec 01
Goodbye Black Bar, Hello Grey Bar – Google+ Gets a Visual Update
Logging into Google+ today I was immediately drawn to the new visual look:
Quite a departure from the "black bar" that we've come to expect from Google+. Here's what it looked like yesterday - and interestingly still looks like on another computer of mine (I'm guessing there is a browser refresh issue there):
You'll note that in the old style of header, you had quick access to other Google services. This has now been moved to a drop-down menu when you hover over the "Google+" logo in the upper right:
This is all part of Google's overall effort to bring a stronger visual identity and simpler user interface across its various products and services.
So far in brief period of using it, I like the new redesign. How about you? What do you think?
P.S. If we aren't already connected on Google+, how about adding me to a circle on Google+?
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
- following me on Twitter;
- adding me to a circle on Google+;
- subscribing to my email newsletter; or
- subscribing to the RSS feed.
Dec 01
Google+ Turns Hangouts Into a Free Conference Calling Service With Free Voice Calls in US and Canada
Fascinating move by Google today... Google+ now allows you to add voice-only phone calls into a "Hangout", allowing you to create conference calls of both video and voice participants. Announced by Googler Jarkko Oikarinen, it is available inside of "Hangout with extras" and allows voice calls out to US and Canadian numbers for free.
When I launched a Hangout (with extras) and then chose the link to invite others, I was presented with an extremely simple screen to add a voice call:
Once the participant had joined, they showed up in the hangout screen above the video participants (only me in this trial case):
No word that I've seen yet on a maximum number of people that can be conferenced into a Google+ Hangout, but I'm sure someone will try that out shortly and we'll have an answer.
UPDATE: Jarkko Oikarinen has clarified in a comment to his post that "each hangout participant can have at most two simultaneous PSTN calls ongoing." From that wording I'm guessing that I could call out to 2 people on the PSTN, and another participant could call out to two more, and so on...
Calls are limited to the US and Canada, although TechCrunch is reporting that Google recommends Google Voice for low rates on international calls.
Now, mixing voice and video calls together is not something dramatically new. Skype has done this for quite some time now within their Group Video Calling service. Still, it's a cool step forward for Google+ and may provide an way to get more people using the Hangouts service.
At the very least, it may provide a way for some of the folks using Hangouts as a way of hosting regular video podcasts to include guests or callers who are not able to establish a video connection or use Hangouts directly. I'm thinking particularly of people who may be mobile or in places with low bandwidth. Or just simply a guest who doesn't want to use video or isn't a user of Google+.
Free conference calls?
I suspect some folks may certainly use this as a way to create free conference calls. As I proved in my own testing, only the originator of the Hangout needs to use the Hangouts feature of Google+. He or she can then simply call everyone else and bring them into the conference call.
However, given that
- you can't yet choose from a list of contacts and have to instead enter each phone number individually; and
- people can't call in to the hangout; and
- per the update above, each participant can only conference in 2 PSTN callers.
I don't expect people to instantly stop using the zillion conference calling services out there. However, it certainly shows a sign of Google's direction and given the rate of change within Google+ I wouldn't be surprised to see enhancements to, for instance, at least store phone numbers coming at some point soon.
It would be very cool if there was a way to start a Hangout with a Circle... and have Google+ automagically connect out everyone in the circle via either video or phone... but who knows, that may come, too!
P.S. And if you are on Google+, why not add me to a circle if you haven't already done so?
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
- following me on Twitter;
- adding me to a circle on Google+;
- subscribing to my email newsletter; or
- subscribing to the RSS feed
Dec 01
FCC to Hold Two December Workshops on PSTN Transition to New Technologies (Featured Blog)
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently issued a public notice that it will be holding two workshops on the transition of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to "new technologies" such as voice-over-IP (VoIP). The workshops will be held on December 6 and 14, 2011, at the FCC's office in Washington, DC. The public notice states the goal as... More...
Nov 30
On The Need To FOCUS In Our Age Of Hyper-Distraction…
"Oh, look, there's a butterfly..."
It's VERY easy to get distracted. Go to do research and pull up an article... only to start clicking on other headlines and photos... and then somewhere in there remember what you were researching...
The topic of "attention", or our lack thereof, has been much on my mind.
So I was amused to find two articles yesterday that both hit this topic straight on:
Developing Razor Sharp Focus with Zen Habits Blogger, Leo Babauta is actually a blog post written back in July 2011 by Jane Genovese, who also produced this wonderful mind-map/graphic that I've included in this post. (A larger version is in her post.)
Jane discusses a free ebook from Leo Babauta, "Focus: A simplicity manifesto in the Age of Distraction" and lays out her own suggestions and commentary about how to focus more. It's a well-done post with, again, a stellar graphic. (I've subsequently downloaded Leo Babauta's ebook, too.)
Don't blame the information for your bad habits is an interview over on O'Reilly's Radar site by Mac Slocum of author Clay Johnson about his upcoming book "The Information Diet" that hits many of the same themes. While this interview is admittedly self-promotional as Johnson's book is an O'Reilly book, it nonetheless has some good thoughts in it. Here's a quote I liked:
In other words, we don't suffer from information overload — we suffer from information overconsumption and poor consumption habits. The solution is just as simple as a successful food diet. It's about building habits and healthy choices for yourself, and sticking to it.
Tim O'Reilly also had a good comment to the post that included in part this:
Time is a precious resource. You don't get it back. Thinking through what you want to produce as well as what you want to consume, and how much time you'll allocate to each activity, is a good start. But there are a whole host of productive steps you can take to remove cruft from your information diet.
Both of these posts came to my attention yesterday... ironically, of course, both through social media. The first through Google+ and the second through either Facebook or Twitter (and possibly both).
Regardless, they do hit on a crucial topic - how do we manage our time and our attention? How do we focus on what is important? How do we not get distracted by all those forces around us that entice us?
I've been taking some steps over the past few months to increase my focus (including of note to only read email at particular times of the day)... and I need to take even a few more.
What steps are you taking to tame the distractions?
UPDATE: Chris Brogan wrote a great post on this topic on Dec 2nd: YOU’RE NOT AS BUSY AS YOU THINK
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
- following me on Twitter;
- adding me to a circle on Google+;
- subscribing to my email newsletter; or
- subscribing to the RSS feed.
