Asterisk Alternatives?

In addition to Trixbox there is a non-derivative project called Freeswitch which is not based directly on the Asterisk open source code.  From the introductory web page:

FreeSWITCH is an open source telephony platform designed to facilitate the creation of voice and chat driven products scaling from a soft-phone up to a soft-switch. It can be used as a simple switching engine, a PBX, a media gateway or a media server to host IVR applications using simple scripts or XML to control the callflow.

We support various communication technologies such as SIP, H.323, IAX2 and GoogleTalk making it easy to interface with other open source PBX systems such as sipX, OpenPBX, Bayonne, YATE or Asterisk.

FreeSWITCH supports many advanced SIP features such as presence/BLF/SLA as well as TCP TLS and sRTP. It also can be used as a transparent proxy with and without media in the path to act as a SBC (session border controller) and proxy T.38 and other end to end protocols.

FreeSWITCH supports both wide and narrow band codecs making it an ideal solution to bridge legacy devices to the future. The voice channels and the conference bridge module all can operate at 8, 16 or 32 kilohertz and can bridge channels of different rates.

FreeSWITCH builds natively and runs standalone on several operating systems including Windows, Max OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris on both 32 and 64 bit platforms.

Our developers are heavily involved in open source and have donated code and other resources to other telephony projects including openSER, sipX, The Asterisk Open Source PBX and Call Weaver.

Gov. Grants and Contracting

Notes and annotations (in italics) from the vtSDA meeting 7/16/2008

Presenter: Joe Kuklis - President and CEO of GSP Consulting

Presentation on the nuts and bolts of federal grants and contracts.

• earmarks
  
• competitive
  
• discretionary
  
• procurement
  

  Earmarks
  These are usually annual. Ideas are due in January. It will be 9-14 months before you would see money from an earmark.
  

  Competitive
  These would be competitive grant applications, like SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) grants.
  

  Discretionary
  Never announced (fix the collapsed bridge in Minnesota).
  

  Procurement
  These are contracts to supply goods and services to an entity of the government.
  

  Soliciations are shown in Federal Business Opportuntities (BizOps https://www.fbo.gov
  

  Note that there are bunch of consultants who advertise a front end for www.fbo.gov, take care when doing a Google search that you actually end up at the government web site. No payment or registration is required to view the solicitations. Also check out the Federal Register.
  

  Vendors to the government, and grant recipients must be entered in the Central Contracting Registry or CCR. Bitter Experience Department:
  Note this is a multi-day process… be sure to start six or more weeks in advance of the time that you want to submit an application or respond to a solicitation, because you will need to be registered as a requirement of your submission.
  

  There are 1400 federal grant programs. Somewhere, somebody in the federal government wants to give you money. All you have to do is ask nicely.
  

  Strength and Needs Analysis
  

  Programming
  

  Messaging -- i.e. "how is this going to save $$$?"
  

  Legislative champions are critical
  

  Advocacy, how are you advocating.
  

  Note that the average legislative aide is about 24 years old, and they may have oversight and decision-making power over millions of dollars.
  

  US DOL Technology Planning Grant
  

  Other DOL Grants at http://www.doleta.gov/SGA/sga.cfm
  

  Avoid grants that are "wired". This is where the bid solicitation is written in some way that only a single company will be able to effective carry out the obligations of the bid. Sound illegal ? This works both ways, you can sometimes receive a "sole source" contract, whereby the contract doesn't go out to bid because you are the only company capable of performing the work. Isn't this illegal? In some cases there is a dollar threshold under which the governement entity isn't required to go out to bid. Sometimes the entity will issue a series of smaller contracts, each one under the threshold, instead of a larger one that would otherwise have to go out to bid.
  

  Create collateral in advance such as
  

  White papers.
  

  Handouts
  

  Opportunities for presentations:
  

  Present to the people in DC (relevant subcommittee chairs)
  

  Present to your district representatives and senators
  

  Present at a "DC-Day" -- usually 1x per year.
  

  Political considerations
  

  Get on the approved government procurement schedule, the GSA.
  

  See their web site at https://www.gsaadvantage.gov
  

  Be a subcontractor to a prime contractor.
  

  Most (all?) large contracts require set-asides for small, minority, women-owned etc. businesses.
  

  Theare a dollar percentage of the the full contract.
  

  You can be a sub for Lockheed-Martin!
  

  Note that a "small business" is less than 500 employees (!)
  

  Some federal grants require a match.
  

  The Players
  

  Program Managers - These are the folks who are responsible for overseeing the actual technical details of the contract or grant. They may be scientists and engineers themselves.
  

  Contract/Procurement/Grant Managers - These are the people who oversee the nuts and bolts of the adminstration of your grant or contract. Talk to these people when there are questions regarding billing, timing, indirect rates, etc.
  

  Small Business Liasons
  

  Prime Contractors
  

  Peer Companies
  

Now Do This: Focus your To Do List

For all of us multi-taskers, it sometimes seems to be impossible to focus on doing just one thing at a time. If I actually ever had an epitaph engraved on a headstone somewhere it might be something like Lawrence Keyes 1952-20038 "He spent 13 years of his life waiting for Windows to reboot".

The Windows reboot problem just engenders multi-tasking...in the mornings, I manage to boil water, grind coffee, and filter the coffee all in the time that it takes my workstation to boot up, connect to the server and open OutLook.

But, once up and running, there are the multitudinous distractions of the web; you can always find something more interesting than what you are supposed to be doing.

So, now, stay focused. In one tab of your browser, go to www.nowdothis.com. Put in your tasks for the next hour or three, or the morning, in the order in which you should do them, and, you'll get that little frisson every time you click done. The page immediately refreshes, and tells you what the next thing is on your list. Brilliant.

Disclaimer: This blog post was not on my list.

At the NIH SBIR Conference in Atlanta

Not quite live... here are notes from the first two sessions of the NIH Summer Conference in Atlanta. 


July 22

SBIR Atlanta Notes  Hot!  92 degrees. 

AirTran - filthy plane, one hour layover in Baltimore from Burlington to Atlanta, $69.00 upgrade to business class, comfortable seat.

MARTA - terrific underground transit system $13.00 for a four day pass. You wave the pass in front of a panel and it opens the door.

Omni Hotel @ CNN Center, great so far...if you enroll in their "select guest" program, you can get coffee and a paper delivered to the room in the morning at no extra charge...or add $2.95 for a croissant.

CDC is in the backyard....they are present today.
FDA is also here

One on Ones == 19 of 24 sessions leave a business card if nobody is there.
RAID - for drug discovery

Evening reception at 4:30 provided by Putnam Williams, outside the main ballroom in the registration area.

NIH staff available during lunch.

First session:
“This isn’t your grandmother’s SBIR/STTR Program Anymore.” JoAnne Goodnight
The program is in its 25th year. About 50% of the conference participants are new. Over 500 people are attending the conference; it does seem busy and big. 

SBIR/STTR Program Overview
NIH SBIR/STTR Program Specifics
Solicitations and Funding Opportunities
Gap funding

STTR is only .03% of extramural funding 

SBIR is 2.5% of extramural funding a

STTR is was set up ten years after SBIR. Designed for more academic co-operative R&D.

The programs are the largest seed capital source.... 2.3 billion dollars
NIH is one of the biggest of the the 14 or so agencies that participate.

Phase III can not use SBIR/STTR funding for final commercialization.

Failure is OK. Sometimes you won’t reach the marketplace.

These programs are unique in the government. High-risk, high-reward research.
SBA is the administrative umbrella.
Company organized as a for-profit
PI primary employment must be with the small business concern at time of award and for the duration of the project period
US owned 51%

STTR must include an intellectual property agreement worked out with the research institution

Difference between SBIR and STTR
STTR allows the PI to employed by the business or the research institution.
SBIR requires PI to be employed by the business.

Nuances of the NIH.

Not just drug development
Not just medical devices

SBIR/STTR are fully integrated with the NIH agenda
23 NIH centers support SBIR/STTR

Cancer
Heart Lung and Blood
Diabetes

Average award for Phase 1 are $170,000 and 12 months

Phase II competing renewal ---
Question does NIA participate in the Phase II competing renewal? Answer...yes it does. 

Timlines - 6-9 months (although my experience was close to 12).

Scientific Review
Council Review
Award Date

There are initiatives to reduce the review timeline (number of months between submission and an award) .

Number of applications are decreasing (!)
Why?
Trying to figure out why --

This is good news, current funding rates are:

24% Phase 1 funded (of grants submitted)
42% Phase II funded
19% Fast-Track funded

There are more and more university startups.
1/2 attendees  today are  affiliated with a research institution

The differences between university and business

Advice: 

* Communicate with the program director
* Understand the institute mission and needs
* Read solicitation and follow instructions
* Don’t go it alone -- find partners 
* Don’t depend solely on SBIR STTR funding
* Have an outcome
* Be persistent


Second Talk Dr. Suzanne Fisher Director of Receipt and Referral CSR/NIH
About how the Center for Scientific Review Works

One issue was a question as to whether they will keep the three due dates.
or have some kind of rolling, ongoing application process

IC = Institute or Center
SRO = Scientific Review Officer

Changes in the past 1.5 year or so

* Two day error correction windows (shortened from five days)
* Multiple Principal Investigator option. (contact PI must meet the SBIR requirements)
* No paper letters like the summary statement are sent anymore.  Everything appears on the NIH commons web site. 

Anyone not registered with the Commons must get registered.

Late applications:
We don’t give permission in advance

Format: requirements must be met. Use headers and bold, etc.

Contact the scientific review officer, to make changes.

One attachment should be a cover letter. There is a suggested format

Don’t submit derivative applications (multiple diseases)
You can resubmit twice. You have to receive the summary statement before resubmitting.

Only 1 Phase II from a single Phase I is allowed.

Electronic Submission is done between Grants.Gov and the NIH Commons

Do the research plan as one document and the cut it up so that you can stay within the page limits

If you do not see your NIH image on the Commons...NIH doesn’t see it either. (so follow up after submitting and make sure it is there).

There are referral guidelines for institutes and centers. You are not owned by a single institute....try to diversfy.

The secret two-letter decoder ring for NIH agencies as part of your grant #.


Peer Review Group
Scientific Review Group
Advisory Council

SRG does the score....
Councll is institute

Funding decision made by Institution/Center

Small business representatives are on review committees

Trying out videoconferencing, and wikis

Most peer reviewers have a Doctoral degree

First thing they do is “unscoring”... find the 40% that are to be rejected, however any reviewer can say they want to perform a review.

Significance
Approach
Innovation
Investigator
Environment

Priority Score - 100-350
100 is the best possible score, 350 is the worst.

All institutes have put a lot of work into their web sites and FAQs.

Tripit or Not

Stupid Internet Service #1020202

Seemed like a good idea at the time. Take the multiple eMails confirmations you receive after planning a trip, and then get a nicely formatted, consolidated itinerary from TripIt. Just don't expect any intelligence. By the time you've massaged everything to work...you could have printed out ten itineraries that you formatted yourself. I especially like the third line from the bottom, "unable to understand 'Hotel Reservations' ".

Fast File Copying with TeraCopy

Seen in Web Worker Daily... Teracopy, a windows copy program that replaces the Windows Explorer copy function, with both high speed and a synchronization capability.

Grantsmanship Seminar in Manchester NH

The Grantsmanship Center's signature Grantsmanship Training Program is coming to Manchester, New Hampshire, July 28-August 1, 2008.

The program will be hosted by Saint Anselm College.

The Grantsmanship Training Program is a comprehensive, hands-on workshop that covers the complete grant development process, from researching funding sources to writing and reviewing grant proposals. More than 110,000 nonprofit and government personnel have attended this fast-paced, five-day workshop, which is followed with a full year of membership support services.

What will you learn:

During the workshop, participants learn The Grantsmanship Center's proposal-writing format, the most widely used in the world. In addition to practicing advanced techniques for pursuing government, foundation, and corporate grants, participants work in small teams to develop and then review real grant proposals.

Participants exit the class equipped with new skills, new professional connections, and follow-up services for one year, including professional proposal review, access to The Grantsmanship Center's exclusive online funding databases, and an array of other benefits. Many also leave with proposals that are ready to polish and submit.

Tuition for the Grantsmanship Training Program is $895 ($845 for each additional registrant from the same organization).

To ensure personalized attention, class size is limited to 30 participants. For more information or to learn about scholarship opportunities for qualifying organizations, click here.

To register online, click here. Or call The Grantsmanship Center's Registrar at (800) 421-9512

Nationwide Training Schedule

Register Now!

More About Us

Our Podcasts

Don't forget to check out our nationwide training schedule for other workshops we'll be conducting throughout the U.S. in coming months.

Best wishes,


All of us at The Grantsmanship Center

Municipal Broadband: How it works, how it is financed

I recently wrote an op-ed about broadband in Vermont (not). Several folks wrote back asking why I hadn't mentioned two major municipal fiber-to-the-home projects, one up and running, Burlington Telecom, and one in the planning and funding stages, ECFiber.

The short answer was that I didn't feel I had enough space to talk about these, the longer answer is that the projects are controversial and have become politicized with one side saying the fiber projects receive an unfair taxpayer subsidy. (They don't.) and the other side saying that the incumbent commercial offerings from Comcast and Verizon/Fairpoint, are receiving overt subsidies as a sort of bribe to encourage them to build out their networks in rural areas. (they might be). Both the fiber systems, and the incumbent systems have been savaged in the press. I didn't really want to go there; I was more interested in the notion of broadband as the equivalent of the interstate highway system.

Anyway, I wanted to point to what appears to be an excellent series of white papers discussing the technical, political, and financial aspects of municipal broadband by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

http://www.newrules.org/info/index.html

I do have a dog in this fight... as a research business start-up, I'm currently buying 14 internet connections using DSL, cable and one lone connection to BT. These are used to deliver our multi-point video exercise program to patients in their homes via their own TV sets and their internet connection. I've dealt with pretty much every horror story you can think of in ordering these connections. Think "airline travel", and you've pretty much got the paradigm. The newspaper piece was really an attempt to (re)start the conversation among the people in our state about a vital piece of our economic future and to educate myself about the alternatives and realities.

Cars & Jobs in America

With $4.00 a gallon gasoline, people are starting to think about the high cost of driving. Yet, in this report and video from the Annie E. Casey foundation, you can see how access to car makes an enormous difference in the lives of low-income workers. From the introduction:

Low-income workers who are trying to reach self-sufficiency, stabilize their finances and move up the economic ladder must be able to connect to good jobs and meet family obligations. A car is often a necessity. However, common obstacles such as overpriced and unreliable cars, sub prime (high interest rate) loans, high down payments, hidden purchase costs, and the limitations caused by poor credit histories can prevent them from improving their lives through car ownership.

Newbie Guide to Asterisk Pitfalls

The good folks over at Nerd Vittles continue to hack away at Asterisk, and publish a terrific blog. Their May 12th posting is great. Asterisk Hell: A Minefield Navigation Guide for Newbies.

VoIP Supply offers SIP trunking

I was intrigued to see that VoIP Supply, the folks that sold me my Trixbox and my Polycom SIP phones are now offering SIP trunking and data services.

Don't know how this stacks up against suppliers like VoicePulse. For one thing the pricing model is slightly different, with VoIP Supply looking for a minimum $25.00 per month, but with unlimited local and long-distance calling in the lower 48 states. VoicePulse, at least the version for Asterisk/Trixbox, was on a pre-paid model but charges 2 cents or so per minute.

What about the quality of these calls though? Maybe I'm just cranky, but I've had literally dozens of calls from vendors in the past year that clearly were low-quality VoIP calls. I would be appalled if my own calls to my clients and prospects sounded like many of these calls.

In one case, I was (supposedly) working with a sophisticated and highly-paid consultant who was using either Vonage or the Comcast VoIP. The guy couldn't get out of his own way...I just couldn't understand him, over multiple calls. How are we supposed to conduct business this way? And, where is the savings per month, at $25.00 or $125 or even $1025 per month that the person is supposedly saving, when as a result a client drops this person, after originally looking forward to a multi-thousand dollar contract? False economy.

Bottom Line: The landline isn't dead yet. Use VoiP for long-distance calls to friends and family, and non-critical overseas calls. If there is any question, during a VoIP call, have a back-up landline available.

And if you have contracted out any functions to a call center (perish the thought...my local newspaper has done this to verify authorship of letters to the editor), be sure you get yourself on the receiving end of such calls to assess the quality. Nothing turns off customers and prospects more quickly then struggling with foreign-based tech support, heavily accented, with stupid calling scripts, and bad sound quality.

Use Excel Goal Seek in Indirect Calculations

The Excel "goal seek" function allows you to to work backwards from a total. I needed to do this when I was calculating direct and indirect costs from a total, without the underlying spreadsheet. The question I wanted to answer was this: "Given a total consortium cost of $72,000, and a known indirect rate of 52%, what is the direct cost?".

Goal Seek only deals with a single variable.

The formula for my calculation would be something like:
X + (X*.52) = 72,000

This looks like three cells in the Excel Spreadsheet

Amount	Rate	Total
47368	0.52	72000

Assuming these are cells M4, N4 ,and O4, on the spreadsheet enter the following

O4 = M4+(M4*N4)

N4 = .52

When you run the goal seeker, it asks for the "goal" value and the goal cell, (which is required to have the formula) It also asks for an "entry" cell, the cell that gets changed as you spin up toward the goal.



So, this shows, that given a total cost of $72,000, the direct costs allowable using a 52% indirect rate would be $47368.