Peter Vatistas

Since the Mozilla website will be crushed today with traffic, here is the direct link to download Firefox Version 3.0 now:

Click here to download Firefox 3

Owning a business can be difficult, especially when it comes to technology implementations and expenses. I always try to find the best possible solution for my specific needs at the lowest possible price available. I’ve had a lot of experience with VOIP devices and servers like Cisco and Altigen but I really didn’t like spending thousands or tens of thousands when I can spend nothing.

Trixbox CE is the most flexible PBX system available today and best of all its FREE. Trixbox CE is an open telephony platform that combines the best of the open source telephony tools into one easy-to-install package. Based on an enhanced LAAMP (an open source bundle of Linux^®, Apache™, Asterisk^®, mySQL^®, and PHP), the Trixbox^® dashboard provides easy to use, Web-based interfaces to setup, manage, maintain, and support a complete IP-PBX system.

Trixbox CE 2.4 comes stocked with hundreds of features including:

• Unlimited Extensions
• TDM/SIP/IAX Trunks
• Remote Extensions
• Voicemail
• Fax Support
• Voicemail to Email
• IVR Menu System
• Ring Groups
• Call Queues
• Conference Rooms
• Follow-Me
• Time-Based Routing
• Music On Hold
• Paging and Intercom
• Web Access to Voicemail
• Admin Status Screen
• Package Manager (for easy updates)
• Phone Provisioning Tool
• Network Settings Tool
• Enhanced CDR Reports
• Echo Cancellation - OSLEC (Open Source Line Echo Cancelation)

Trixbox CE 2.4 is based off of:

• CentOS 5.1 kernel
• Asterisk 1.4
• FreePBX 2.3
• Web MeetMe 3

Best part about Trixbox CE is many Aastra, Polycom and Cisco VOIP phones are compatible! Here are some screenshots of the Trixbox CE 2.4 administrative interface:

Trixbox Links:

Trixbox Certified IP Phones

Trixbox Certified Servers and Interface Cards

Click here to download Trixbox CE

I’ve been getting requests from many of you asking where to download the Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2. Just remember that the SP3 RC2 is a Beta and I’ve read many threads in Technet & the Microsoft IT Advisory about the degradation of performance after installing SP3 RC2; you may want to want if you cannot afford to lose any data on your PC.

Some new features SP3 adds to Windows XP:

* Black Hole Router Detection
* Network Access Protection (NAP)
* Descriptive Security Options User Interface
* Enhanced security for Administrator and Service policy entries
* Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module
* Windows Product Activation (Now users can install Windows XP without entering a product key, much like Vista)

Click here to download Windows XP SP3 RC2

Click here to read details about Windows XP SP3 RC2

If you read the comments from “How to Install OS X Leopard on a PC - iATKOS v1.0i Tutorial” you’ll see the issues I had when I tried to install Microsoft Windows XP after removing Ox86 Leopard from my Compaq laptop. When I booted the Windows XP Pro installation CD I was getting the error message “Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer”. After trying several times to partition and format (with no luck) I decided to try a very neat tool out called nLite.

nLite allowed me to configure my Microsoft Windows install CD by adding drivers and applications. I downloaded my laptop’s sata controller driver from Compaq’s website and added it and to the driver configuration portion of nLite as well as selecting “Bootable ISO”. After a couple minutes I had a new bootable Windows XP installation CD and no more missing hard disk error.

From what I found this error is quite normal for people that have sata hard drives, who have installed Microsoft Windows Vista and decided to downgrade back to Microsoft Windows XP.

Click Here Download nLite

Dell Drivers | HP Drivers | Compaq Drivers | Gateway Drivers | Sony Drivers | Asus | Toshiba

A few of you wanted to know where you could find Apple’s OS X Leopard Server wallpaper, well here it is (click image for 2560 x 1600 Leopard Server wallpaper):

Being that I am an SEO I need to see live stats and information all the time; fortunately for me Firefox has a lot of great tools for free and extremely easy to use.

SEO tools for Firefox:

1. Search Status: This toolbar provides extensive search-related information about a site, all conveniently displayed in one discreet and compact toolbar. I use everything this tool has to offer but my favorite feature is the display of site’s Google PR, Alexa, and Compete at the base of my browser.

2. SEO for Firefox: Aaron Wall from SEOBook had this neat little tool developed and I love it. Tons of stats show for every listing in Google’s SERP whenever you search anything. This tool has to be one of the best SEO tools out there and without it a lot of my time would be wasted.

3. Social Media for Firefox: I already posted about this but this tool is worth the time to write about again. You can see my original post here but for those of you SEO/SEM Social Network guys like myself this tool just rocks and is definitely a major time saver.

Here is a list of other extensions I use including a few other SEO/SEM plug ins:

- SEOpen: This tool packs a ton of SEO tools, most I use daily.

- SEOLinks: Neat little tool that shows link stats with mouse over.

- Link Checker: Don’t get caught with broken links again.

- ShowIP: Love this tool for when I swing DNS records.

- ServerSpy: Great extension to show what type of server & version the site is hosted on (i.e. Apache 2, IIS 7.0, etc).

Today I downloaded and installed Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Alpha 1 on my development server and I am very excited!

I do not recommend installing Ubuntu 8.04 on a production machine due to the amount of bugs and expected breakage as with any Alpha stage application or operating system. If you are interested in testing or even fixing bugs then get your download on!!

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) Download

Good Luck!

Social Media for Firefox has to be one of the best add-ons in my Firefox arsenal. The tool is placed at the bottom of my Firefox browser and gives me immediate access to my favorite social media accounts like Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, and Reddit.

For the people who know me - they know that I am a Firefox extension whore and I try everything out there and I keep only what I HAVE TO have. This is on my favorite list of extensions, get it.

Download Social Media for Firefox here and please pass it on - its a tool worthy of exposure (like my blog, LOL!)

Although its nice not having to rely on anything Microsoft anymore there are some things I need to properly do my job, one of which is testing our websites on all web browsers through dev. I recently came across this neat application that allows me to run Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE4, IE5, & IE6) on Ubuntu (as well as most distro’s of Linux).

IEs4Linux also is working hard on their next release which allows “us” Linux users to run Microsoft IE7!! I’ve been playing with the beta release of Internet Explorer 7 on Ubuntu and you can download the beta here.

IEs4Linux is probably the easiest app I have installed and works wonderfully in Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). It’s there when I need it and it’s fast, all three versions.

To install IEs4Linux you have to enable universe packages first. It is also recommended that you use the official winehq ubuntu package:

1) Open a terminal

2) Open /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

3) Uncomment (or add) following lines:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy universe

4) Add this line:

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt edgy main

5) Close gedit. Update and install wine and cabextract:

wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine cabextract

6) Download IEs 4 Linux and install

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux

Note for Dapper users: if you use ubuntu dapper, replace edgy with dapper on lines above. Note for Feisty users (7.04): if you use ubuntu Feisty, replace edgy with feisty in the lines above. Also replace gedit with kedit if running Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu.

For more information or steps to install on other distro’s please visit IEs4Linux.

If you find this application useful please donate here - this open source app was developed by Sérgio Luís Lopes Júnior, a 21 year old college student in Brazil. I always donate - it is really important to keep these guys (and kids) going.

I get a lot of emails from people whom want to know which applications I prefer in Windows. Although this is both a loaded question and a very broad one, I will try to answer this the best I can and will definitely update it from time to time.

Favorite FTP Application: WinSCP

Favorite Telnet & SSH Application: PuTTY

Favorite Internet Browser: Firefox 2 & Safari

Favorite Imaging Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 - Open Source: Gimp

Favorite Instant Messanger: Application: Trillian - Web Based: Meebo

Favorite Text Editor (HTML, CSS, etc): Edit Plus 2

Favorite CD/DVD & ISO Software: MagicISO

Favorite Office Suite: Microsoft Office 2007 - Open Source: Open Office & Star Office

Favorite Compression & Encryption Software: WinRAR

Favorite Blogging Software: Windows Live Writer

Favorite AntiVirus/Malware Software: Eset NOD32

Favorite Email Client: Microsoft Outlook 2007 (for exchange) - Open Source: Mozilla Thunderbird 2

Favorite BitTorrent Application: Azureus

This list is way from a complete one and to be honest I have been moving away from Windows all together and replacing them with Mac’s. Sorry Microsoft guys - I have been bit by the Apple bug. I also have a laptop running Fedora 8 and I’ll make sure I write a favorite’s list for both Apple and Linux soon.