Asterisk
The first thing of note with this book is that the appendixes are almost as long as the book itself. In this case it is a good thing. The appendixes contain all the detail reference you need to make Asterisk really work right. Asterisk is an open-source private PBX/VOIP software product. With the software and the addition of a couple of PBX cards to your computer you can setup your own telephony system. Asterisk supports voicemail, multiple lines, call-forwarding and everything else you think of when you think about a telephony system. The primary problem with Asterisk has been the difficulty of getting good documentation. This book resolves that problem as the authors walk the reader through everything everything they need to know to set up an Asterisk server. The book does not provide information on the many types of telephone hardware and how to setup a multi-line phone or similar equipment nor is that the intent of the authors. This is a book on the Asterisk software system only and it does an excellent job of explaining the details of the software. With very little documentation available on Asterisk this is a very welcome manual and a recommended read for anyone interested in using Asterisk to set up their own telephony solution.
Author: Jim Van Meggelen, Jared Smith, Leif Madsen
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
1005 Gravenstein Highway North
Sebastapol, CA 95472
Copyright: 2005
ISBN: 0596009623
Pages: 208 plus multiple appendixes and index