. : Dexter Cole, CCNP, CCDP : .

Cisco, HP, NCR, GE, Cox, Insight, ASA, Spacenet…whew! Is the market picking up?

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:02:43 +0000

QoS and Apple iPhone 4 Keynote

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:27:39 +0000

Hilarious! C’mon. Where’s, Mr. Network Engineer? We couldn’t get a QoS policy map configured (temporarily) to prioritize traffic from Mr. Jobs iPhone during the presentation? http://gizmodo.com/5557458/watch-the-apple-keynotes-network-meltdown

It worked!

admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:32:24 +0000

Wow….after tinkering for days as time allowed to leverage the capabilities of SipGate, GoogleVoice, Xlite, MagicJack, an IP Phone on the Cisco UC520W, I was able to successfully test a couple of different configurations for inbound & outbound calling on both SIP (free) and PSTN (ATT & MagicJack) trunks playing with various features such as call forwarding, simultaneous ring, text-to-speech, voicemail, automated attendant, etc. using my cell phone, cordless landline phone, and IP Phone (desktop and softphone). Now my mind compels me to get ‘creative’ with the phone system…uh oh!

Gizmo5 and UC500

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:51:37 +0000

Now that the UC500 has successfully been upgraded to software pack 8 which includes Cisco Call Manager Express (CME) 8.0 and runs the new 15.x train of IOS (which thankfully restored my single number reach (SNR) capabilty), I am cooking up yet another experiment to test (the now Google) Gizmo5 SIP service as an add’l inbound SIP trunk and playing with Google Voice integration. Because I don’t want to quite yet shoulder the expense of SIP service being that I have landline phone services through AT&T (formerly BellSouth) used primary for our alarm system and MagicJack (which is more or less a packaged USB/Internet-based SIP device that provides dial-tone to analog phones at one time easily hackable for the SIP credentials ;^) used experimentally for long distance, I decided to work with the free Gizmo5 inbound SIP service to explore the SIP on the UC500. You can guess as most Americans, cell phones have taken the place of our home phone. I can imagine in the very near future WiFi (i.e. 802.11?) /IP enabled PDA/smartphones replacing desktop stations/phones…also where IP PBX’s will integrate seamlessly with these SIP-enabled cell phones to finally replace the clunky, proprietary digital and IP (i.e. SCCP) handsets tied to most of today’s IP-enabled phone systems.

Let’s Captcha the Spammers

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:42:00 +0000

I really should have done this along time ago as I have let blasians.com go too long unattended. Database has grown to a ridiculous amount, filled with invalid registrations from spammers with email addresses ending in .ru . I was going to rebuild the server but was way too curious where these registrations were sourced. I decided to do a whois lookup at ARIN on the IP addresses to find they are part of RIPE. Anyone know the Dragonara Alliance:

% This is the RIPE Database query service.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% The RIPE Database is subject to Terms and Conditions.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms-conditions.pdf

% Note: This output has been filtered.
%       To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag.

% Information related to '194.8.74.0 - 194.8.75.255'

inetnum:         194.8.74.0 - 194.8.75.255
netname:         DRAGONARA-NET
descr:           Dragonara Alliance Ltd
country:         GB
org:             ORG-DRAG1-RIPE
admin-c:         AGAV2-RIPE
tech-c:          AGAV2-RIPE
status:          ASSIGNED PI 
mnt-by:          RIPE-NCC-HM-PI-MNT
mnt-by:          DRAGONARA-MNT
mnt-lower:       RIPE-NCC-HM-PI-MNT
mnt-routes:      DRAGONARA-MNT
mnt-domains:     DRAGONARA-MNT
source:          RIPE # Filtered

organisation:    ORG-DRAG1-RIPE
org-name:        Dragonara Alliance Ltd
org-type:        OTHER
address:         Geneva Place, Waterfront Drive,
                P. O. Box 3469, Road Town, Tortola,
                British Virgin Islands
mnt-ref:         DRAGONARA-MNT
mnt-by:          DRAGONARA-MNT
source:          RIPE # Filtered

person:          Andrey Gavrilog
address:         Geneva Place, Waterfront Drive,
                P. O. Box 3469, Road Town, Tortola,
                British Virgin Islands
mnt-by:          DRAGONARA-MNT
abuse-mailbox:   abuse@dragonara.net
phone:           +41 435.001.009
nic-hdl:         AGAV2-RIPE
source:          RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to '194.8.74.0/23AS44557'

route:           194.8.74.0/23
descr:           Dragonara Alliance
origin:          AS44557
mnt-by:          DRAGONARA-MNT
source:          RIPE # Filtered

Well, let’s see if your spambots have mastered it’s way around captcha. Last invalid registration was…wait I better configure it first!

Cisco Configuration Assistant (CCA) 2.2 is Nice

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:24:12 +0000

I am really feeling the new version of Cisco Configuration Assistant 2.2 with the realistic icons (replacing the cartoons) representing nodes in topology view. That is too slick! Also, didn’t notice the Cisco RSS News reader in the older version (never thought to look).

I can’t wait to upgrade the UC500 later this afternoon to see what new features are unleashed. I lost Single Number Reach (SNR) on an upgrade to 7.0.3 and skipped the early adopter 7.1.3 recommended for thr 8.0 release.

With the MagicJack and PSTN line, I plan to explore SNR functionality.

UC520 Upgrade

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:02:04 +0000

Hmmm…just yesterday Cisco released version 8 of UC520 software package. Getting ready to download for an upgrade later today to explore new features.

New Cisco Certification Logos Rock!

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:48:26 +0000

Wow…it’s been a while since I’ve tracked my Cisco certifications although my CCNP and CCDP are both still active (as are the CSEv3 partner cert for sales), and I really like the new logos. The ARS SE/FE partner certs are one WAAS test away from completion. I kept seeing these logos as pictures/avatars of profiles on multiple Cisco forums and wondered if the logo changed. Why does it look like it’s loosely based on the CCIE logo?

Finally Received my Google Wave Invites for Friends

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:14:52 +0000

I am excited to have finally received my long awaited Google Wave Invites for friends to grow my contact list and ‘wave’ more. I have 8 invitations. Let’s see how fast I can get rid of them!

Cisco CDP across Apple Airport TimeCapsule & Express 802.11n

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:43:11 +0000

I was surprised after upgrading the IOS on the Cisco router and UC500 to see CDP recognize both devices as neighbors across a wireless link. Here’s my topology:

Cisco Router -> Apple Time Capsule —) ) ) ) ) 802.11n ( ( ( ( ( ( —Apple Airport Express-> Cisco UC500

Both devices see each other via ‘ show cdp neighbors.’ Now to find what changed. Too cool!

Now, I’m thinking about building a Linux (LAMP) VM to install Nagios, OPenNMS, Cacti, Freeradius and nTop for starters.