Timberline Employee Blog

Sometimes the caller id database that your dial-tone provider uses is never queried and caller id doesn’t work correctly.

I had a problem where the CID database had my name information submitted but I could never test correctly from. After a bunch a research on my own I found the answer to my problem. (We have a service contract with one of the local shoretel reps that was unwilling to help me, but I think this will be changing soon.)

I found over at shoretelforums.com the answer in two parts. First I needed the ;2E in my trunk dialing string. The ;2E selects ‘National’ for the caller id type. My system was defaulting to unknown which my dialtone provider finally told me was the root of the problem.

To add the ;2E to your string you will need to enter the Shoretel Director in support mode. At the Shoretel Director login prompt hold down CTRL and SHIFT, then click on the text that says ‘User ID’. You should now get a red *** Support Entry *** underneath the login box. Now log in normally.

Please do not change anything else than the following in support mode.

Under Administration, Trunks, Trunk Groups:
Open the PRI you want to change.
Scroll down to the bottom and edit your custom Trunk Group Dialing Rules.

 - Be shure to copy down exactly what is currently in the box if you need to revert your changes. -

Save your change and test.

Now that my CID string says national, my dial-tone provider is correctly popping the CID database. I can now properly test calls placed to internal ten digit DID numbers.

Most companies have a number of business they deal with that offer support.

Why not make a help card that employees can refer to with the most common and/or most important two or three numbers called? Here is an example:

If you downloaded the Microsoft Office 2007 trial and decided that your Microsoft Office XP will continue to suit you just fine than you will need to download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. This provides support for reading Microsoft Office 2007 formats in Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Office XP, and Microsoft Office 2003.

Link 1 — Link 2

After a lengthy non productive chat with Chrysler tech support for the Chrysler dealer website I decided to do some investigation.  I started going through miscellaneous recent Microsoft updates that included msxml3.dll. KB936021 from mid December has msxml3.dll. I uninstalled this update to make this go away:

I rebooted and checked but no luck.

Trial and error let to uninstalling KB941568, a requirement for KB941644. And success it works again.

For more than two decades I have been convinced that IBM PC clone based personal computers were the most cost effective way to compute. Fifteen years ago I operated a small local BBS on DOS and OS/2 operating systems. On that BBS we featured Fidonet messages and its accompanying Filebone freeware and shareware files.

One day I noticed a set of floppy images in my in folder. I found out that day that Linux was born. I tried it and discarded it. Almost a decade later, I now have Linux on 95% of the servers I build. The turning point for Linux was when easy CDROM based distributions started coming complete with GUI interfaces. GUI, while unnecessary for servers, is entirely necessary for self taught knowledge if only for multiple windows. Multiple windows can be opened and viewed at the same time. A help window and an application window or terminal window open at the same time can do wonders over a plain terminal or DOS window with ‘help’ or ‘man’. Sure you can swap to different screens but reading cryptic help messages and remembering after swapping screens can sometimes be problematic.

About this point I’ve used Macs for school and only very minimally for work. The online community has had a lot of OS Snobs. I never took Apple seriously, guilty of reverse snobbery. As far as I knew the added monetary cost of Mac equipment has either caused these people to be snobs because they spent too much and it had to get out of thier systems -or- they were already rich snobs. Either way, not for me at this time. Most of the applications I could find were all for purchase and expensive.

Windows from the ground up has been great as a single user multitasking operating system. It truly wasn’t good until WFW 3.11 when networking was introduced as part of the Windows package. And it truly hasn’t been great afterwords. Windows 98 is the closest thing to great that Microsoft has had since. I’m basing that in time to install, patch, load helper programs and plug-ins, and secure. Windows ME flopped. Windows XP added a lot of eye candy. Everybody likes eye candy and the Games. Windows XP does do better at the gaming experience except for Dungeon Keeper 2 which must be played on Windows 98 (I’m still looking to see if Leopard and Wine can do it.).

So lets go jump to 2004. Linux is great for file, web, and email servers. If you are not locked into vendor browsers and readers, Linux also makes for a good desktop. Windows XP is great at a user ‘experience’ but is poor on time invested on up-keep.  What is this OSX people have been talking about? Is it really built up on a Linux/Unix type foundation? It sounds interesting. Let me look up online what I can find out… Hmm still too much OS Snobbery clouding out the people who want to help.

Jump back to 2007. Vista. Before Microsoft it was singular. You could only look at one vista. Now Microsoft has pluralized Vista into too many options. The parties involved at Microsoft who pluralized Vista into more than three platforms probably work at Apple or even for somebody that Microsoft stomped upon to get to where it is at. I had a notebook with Vista on it. I returned it to the store I bought it. I have a PC with a free Vista upgrade. The upgrade is still sitting on my desk unopened. Vista has more eye candy and dashboard plug-ins than XP, but nobody can convince me of its main selling point, security. Microsoft as a business is built on upgrading, how do you convince people must upgrade unless what they have is unsecure? The face of computing has evolved since Microsoft incorporated but the business model in this arena has not. Driver support and corporate lock-in aside, ultimately for me it came down to the number of versions of Vista that turned me away. Vista caused me to to not buy a notebook, or rather Vista caused me to return the notebook I purchased. This must cost the manufacturer even more. Not only a lost sale, but a return to process.

What now? I finally need to replace some old equipment. Boot camp? What is Boot camp? This is starting to sound promising in the computing world. There is a notebook designed to run Windows XP and is being actively marketed and it is called Mac.

I picked up a MacBook Pro, upgraded to Leopard (OSX 10.5), ran the Boot Camp install, and installed XP from my own disks. All the necessary XP drivers are included on the Leopard disks. I found out later I needed the non Leopard restore disks to install iLife 08.

I’m quite happy now. Windows XP games and business apps work. My new notebook has Wireless N and bluetooth. If I install VMware Fusion, I can even run Dungeon Keeper 2. If I wanted to, I could even skip boot camp and run everything in VMware Fusion. I have found a lot of freeware ported from the same free software movements that are propelling Linux.