[thelist] Computerized Automatic Phone Answering

[Fred Jones]

> I think your second thought is a strong one, regardless of the base OS
> - it also gives you a pretty strong roll-back strategy for when
> upgrades don't work as they should.
>
> However, unless you really rate their ability to safely and
> effectively sysadmin the box, I'd strongly caution against encouraging
> them to do so. Better perhaps to have them view it as a black box CTI
> appliance.

Definitely--if I go with a virtual machine I will discourage him from
playing with it. Perhaps I will give him a spare to play with because
I know he will find it hard to resist. I know this guy now. :)

> This is one such module.  And exactly what you'd need.

Great. Thanks.

>> Overall this seems fairly straightforward. I presume that for a
>> complete beginner to Asterisk, however, it could easily take 4 hours
>> to setup the machine. :)
>>
> It is fairly straight forward.  But for a beginner I'd allow for a full
> day.  If you get done sooner then all the better.

OK, 1 full day. I posted my ideas on the Asterisk Forums and the
responses were, well, a bit odd. One guy said it will take a week and
the other guy thought I was posting a joke:

http://forums.digium.com/viewtopic.php?p=131654#131654

The two of you (Martin and Jon) clearly appear to have professional
experience with this and seem to feel that my plan is entirely
reasonable. 8 vs 4 hours to setup is not a problem, but a week or a
joke is a different matter.

If you (anyone that is) could please clarify just once more than I am
being entirely reasonable I would appreciate it. I don't actually see
any reason to suggest that I am not, but there is of course a small
chance that these Asterisk forum turkeys have a point.

Also, now that we come to this, if anyone would be interested to setup
a VirtualBox machine for me (for a fee), perhaps that would be more
cost effective. If so, let me know offline.

Thank you.