Darren Sessions has posted details of the latest version of flite - now working with Asterisk 1.6.

Dan Austin has posted details of the latest release of web-meetme.

Mike Clark has posted details of a new interface written in Ruby on Rails for Asterisk Realtime.

The Asterisk development team has released new versions of three libraries used with Asterisk.

The Asterisk.org development team has released Asterisk versions 1.4.21.2 and 1.2.30.

Another traffic amplification attack - this one related to the firmware provisioning not using a handshake.

An Asterisk Project Security Advisory has been release relating to the ability of a flood of POKE messages to cause Asterisk to run out of call numbers.

On September 26-28 in Glendale, Arizona, a group of Asterisk developers will be getting together for three days of hacking, coding, testing, designing and otherwise beating on the Asterisk code base.

The Asterisk development team has released version 1.4.5 of libpri. This release was made solely to correct a problem introduced in version 1.4.4.

m0n0wall 1.234 adds source port randomization (which mitigates the recently discovered DNS security vulnerability) and contains updated versions of PHP and Dnsmasq.

A time management problem that people often ask me about is how to get started on a new big tasks (NBT). With a heavy number of interruptions, meetings, and so on it can be easy to get distracted and never actually start that important NBT. Starting a NBT is also a bit intimidating; it's emotionally easier to continue with checking email, answering tickets, and (this is the big one) work on less important, but easier, tasks.

When I need to start a new big task I hide. I really do. I find a small conference room, hide, and work for an hour disconnected from the internet. I'm not ashamed to admit this. Hiding really works.

I'm not completely hidden. I don't cover the windows. People can find me. My immediate coworkers know where I am.

As I start to pack for my trip to Australia, I'm getting really excited about attending the SAGE-AU 2008 conference.  I just got email with the preliminary registration numbers for my workshops (note: more people will sign up "day of"):

• Interviewing/Hiring Technical People: 8 registrations
• Time Management for System Administrators: 31 registrations
• "Help!  Everyone hates our IT Department!": 24 registrations

I interpret this to mean a few things: 1) not a lot of people plan on hiring in the next year or not a lot of people are coming that early to the conference. 2) a lot of people want help with their time management.  3) there is no shortage of people concerned about fixing their IT group.

By the way... I've completely revamped the Time Management slides.  Previously I've tweaked them between conferences.  This time I took a hard look at what people found useful, didn't need, and the way I was presenting the information.  I refocused the slides around the more streamlined version of "the cycle", dropped the parts that got the most yawns or "why would anyone want that?"-looks.  I also made sure that the more entertaining parts were retained and are spread evenly throughout the presentation.  As I learned from mjd's "Presentation Judo" talk says, "Your primary goal should be to entertain".  Each slide should educate and entertain, but if you have to pick just one, choose to entertain: people are sitting in the same seat for 3 hours, they deserve nothing less.

Now I have to get back to packing.  For the last few months any time I've thought of something to bring I wrote it on my todo list for August 6th.  Packing is less stressful when you have confidence that you won't forget anything.  Now I just have to fit it all in my luggage!

It's not too late to register for SAGE-AU 2008.  I look forward to seeing you there!

Tom will be presenting 3 tutorials and a keynote at SAGE-AU 2008.  Register today!

Kristian Kielhofner has posted details of a new AstLinux install script to test.

John Todd from Digium has posted asking people if they would like to go on a balloon trip

Ronald Lewis has posted a preview of his howto guide for running Asterisk on Amazon EC2.

An Asterisk Project Security Advisory has been release relating to the ability of a flood of POKE messages to cause Asterisk to run out of call numbers.

Oron Peled has posted an RFC on the DAHDI span system.

Over the weekend I finished the AsteriskWatch FaceBook application. It encompasses a wide range of Asterisk features including Karma, News, Discussion Boards and Links.