The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Konichiwa Songfighters,

November is always the busiest month in the Niviverse and this year is no exception. Glenn & I started the Purple Reign and it's myspace has over 1500 friends. The GoM is going strong and I have begun the yearly listening to all the SF songs of the year. All that and Septemberian and birthdays and thanksgiving and hopefully Lucidia and I will be making music Thanksgiving weekend. Sooooo much going on. But I can't complain. I would rather all this stuff than nothing.

QotD:
How do you deal with writer's block?

i kick it to the curb.

qotd: don't have it, have never had it, don't know what it is. I hear its a good friend of stage fright whoever that is.

I write and never have a problem with it. Perhaps my version of writers block is a block of badly written songs/poetry.

EVERY once and a while I'll struggle with a verse. Then I just make the third verse the same as the first. Tada.

roll call: End of a busy work week. Good lord the phones have been ringing. If you are ever in the VOIP business. Always go with the Polycoms...stay away from the Aastra and Cisco phones.

qotd: wallow in self-pity, stop doing anything creative for a while, let the spark come back naturally.

drc: meh

hoblit: Also avoid Grandstream like the plague. Holy fuck do their products suck.

Hoblit wrote:Always go with the Polycoms...stay away from the Aastra and Cisco phones.

The phones we have at work have had no end of problems... every other week we get "oh the phones are broken, you can't use them" and we wonder why they got rid of our good ol' normal phones. Guess what... they're Cisco.
-bill

Good ol' normal phones require all the management to be in the wiring, while VoIP phones put the management into the phone itself, which is good if the phone itself is decent, but yeah, most VoIP phones are pieces of shit.

For home use, Linksys is okay (just because Polycom is way too spendy and complex for a home user), but for the office, Polycom is the way to go.

Cisco phones apparently make excellent movie props, however.

Something is stuck in my brain spaghetti.

Start working it out in my head.

Pick up my guitar and strum it a bit.

Start writing my thoughts in some sort of short interesting way. Get "the block"

Can't believe how much I suck.

unwind.

Let it flow.

Say fuck it and go to bed.

Writer's block and depression seem to coincide for me. I think there's definitely a causal relationship, but I'm not sure which is the effect and which is the cause. I suppose it may actually be more accurate to say that they're both symptoms of something else. They seem to make each other worse if they get out of control. But my mood is very unstable this year, and there are varying degrees. It can get to the point where I can't function, and there doesn't seem to be much to do but wait for it to it pass. But when I'm simply feeling uninspired or lacking ideas, or in a somewhat neutral mood, I usually just try to work through it. I produce my best work when I'm inspired, but I can still produce something, otherwise. Typically, the less I have to struggle with a piece, the better it turns out, but even a bad song is better than no song. Therefore, I try to write as often as possible, if for no other reason than to keep the blades sharp. And when the muse does decide to visit, I try to write in bursts. But sometimes, it will only last until the end of a certain project. You know, it's weird, and I'm still trying to figure it out. Whatever.

The best way around writers' block for me is to step outside my comfort zone. Read a book I wouldn't otherwise have read. Listen to new music. Let someone drag me to a film I don't wanna see. Something usually inspires me when I get out of my rut.

drc: Spent the day travelling, wound up back home in New Orleans. Oddly enough, they seem to have gotten something right!

When I have writer's block, I go HERE. It also helps to write with other people. Writing in a new style helps too. Try learning another instrument too - I get inspired in different ways with different instruments.

ps-I'm loving the lack of reviews for Maki. Maybe I should do some today... maybe not - a friend from edmonton's stopping by, so probably not.

I forgot to mention. Watching a movie Ive never seen before always helps. Generally a movie I wouldn't normally watch....which is why I haven't seen it yet.

qotd: listen to/read something that i think is amazing. watching movies never helps, but nature documentaries do.

HeuristicsInc wrote:

Hoblit wrote:Always go with the Polycoms...stay away from the Aastra and Cisco phones.

The phones we have at work have had no end of problems... every other week we get "oh the phones are broken, you can't use them" and we wonder why they got rid of our good ol' normal phones. Guess what... they're Cisco.
-bill

Yeah, we plain stopped selling/using Cisco phones in our phone network set-ups.

fluffy wrote:Good ol' normal phones require all the management to be in the wiring, while VoIP phones put the management into the phone itself, which is good if the phone itself is decent, but yeah, most VoIP phones are pieces of shit.

For home use, Linksys is okay (just because Polycom is way too spendy and complex for a home user), but for the office, Polycom is the way to go.

Yeah, the biggest problem with VOIP (IMO) is that phones of the internet have too many variables that endanger the systems' stability.

First, how many times there are internet issues. Be it Cable or DSL or (T1s are great! but too expensive for most of our clients needs) there is always some issue with their internet connection.

Second, too many variables in possible equipment failure. Routers on both ends, modems (if it isn't the internet itself going down its the modem failure), switches, analog converters (for fax and credit card machines or even regular phones for some folk) bad cables, etc...

Third, getting over all of the software incompatibilities and bugs. I swear we should be getting beta testing checks from some of our software providers. Our network administrator is always troubleshooting the software and sending back what equates to bug reports.

Fourth, electricity. If you've been lucky enough to not have dealt with the previous items, eventually your power will go out. (Of course this effects a lot of regular PBX or POTS lines with phones that rely on electricity traditionally) We set up our networks on battery back ups but then; see 'second' again.

Its a great business model and I think in the future in phone systems will probably lean towards VOIP... (cheaper, relies less on the 'big guys' who own all the phone lines ((but you still have to lease those lines for DSL)) more features etc...) but its still in its infancy. We are trudging through all of these growing pains.

fluffy wrote: Cisco phones apparently make excellent movie props, however.

Note: Our sales staff likes to sell the Aastra phones because the 'look cooler / slicker". (That and Polycom's cordless phone isn't as cheap. I'm not even sure its out yet)

What software do you guys use? Asterisk is a piece of shit from a code perspective but it's free and it's less shitty than the commercial software, and once you understand its weird-ass configuration format it's not too terrible.

(Most of my exposure to Asterisk was trying to write extensions for it on a contracting gig, so I was less than impressed with how well-factored the code was.)

fluffy wrote:What software do you guys use? Asterisk is a piece of shit from a code perspective but it's free and it's less shitty than the commercial software, and once you understand its weird-ass configuration format it's not too terrible.

(Most of my exposure to Asterisk was trying to write extensions for it on a contracting gig, so I was less than impressed with how well-factored the code was.)

We use Iperia and Sylantro. I hate the Sylantro user interface. It's built in Flash and is supposed to be 'user friendly'. It's slow and clunky but for the most part usable. (whenever it finally loads) Sylantro does have a non-flash version but it's not as user friendly.

Sylantro is the first step.. it handles the calls initially and sets each phone's user profile.

Iperia handles voice mail and auto attendant handling and integrates with Sylantro after the initial handling has been...well, handled.

Typically, those systems work pretty well. Every once and a while though there will be something that doesn't work as advertised and we have to get with the software providers and shake em' down a little. Most of our problems are with the phone software themselves. Aastra's developers like to use XML which in itself is great. But a lot of the time its buggy. The phones don't always do what they advertise or are supposed to do. Their firmware updates seem to fix problem points while breaking other items that were working fine before. Very frustrating.

You'll have every setting right but it won't work. You end up 'figuring' out a way to make it work. (This wastes a LOT of time and the customer suffers for it)

Verizon is putting in fiber to the home with 15 Mbps up/down via their FiOS system. This will change everything. As much as I hate Verizon, they have the most reliable systems for the NYC area. I will likely switch off my cable triple-play to a Verizon one as soon as it's available.

They will also be adding ads to Web error pages.

röymond wrote:Verizon is putting in fiber to the home with 15 Mbps up/down via their FiOS system. This will change everything. As much as I hate Verizon, they have the most reliable systems for the NYC area. I will likely switch off my cable triple-play to a Verizon one as soon as it's available.

We have FIOS here too. Its offered in limited areas. We didn't like the reseller offer initially. I imagine we'll look at it again because it serves us better to be the ISP for our VOIP networks. Complete network with one invoice to the customer. You know, the whole bundle deal. (Triple-play if you will )

Also, in our area BECAUSE of FIOS, Brighthouse (The cable company) is starting to offer 15mb residential packages.

You know, I see commercials for Brighthouse a lot, but I never knew what it was. They seem kind of sketchy to me, acting like they're not cable. Because they never say what they are. They just say rhetorical shit, like, "Is your house a Bright House?" I just think, well, obviously not. I suppose it makes sense, though. Cable isn't very suave or majestic. Not like cows, anyway. But yeah, I have Comcast. You know, mainly for the internet. But occasionally, I do watch the television, and they have some good commercials!