TeleFlow Communicator

Open Communications for Business & Pleasure

Sometimes Open Source is Better

[ No Comments ] Posted on 10.07.08 under Uncategorized

When we originally started developing TeleFlow in 1993, open source was nearly unheard of.  In fact, with the exception of most of the analog and T1/E1 telecommunications standards, very few the of modern development standards we see today were employed. For example, the file standard “XML” showed up a good deal later in 1997, and VXML followed in 1999.  The development tools PHP and MySQL were released in 1995, and have since become two of the strongest web standards for creating web and communication applications.

Until recently, generally available voice development platforms did not evolve as quickly as web development applications due to the expense of deploying solutions that required voice hardware and relatively expensive telephone services.  Today, communications technologies and standards such as SIP, have opened the doors to deploying voice applications with far less expense compared to 1993.  The greater expense, to some degree, kept voice communications solutions closed as there was a perceived fear of loss of intellectual property.  There simply was not an incentive to open source software the way it had been on the web side.

After dabbling with an open source project or two, we, the developers of TeleFlow, decided to release TeleFlow in GPL 3.0 which we hope will be of benefit to a wider audience.  This was not an easy decision for us, but ultimately, we believe that this new direction is best for all existing users of TeleFlow, and eventually perhaps will even help it find new audiences.  In fact, a goal of open sourcing TeleFlow is to provide an easier means for web developers to readily expand the capabilities of their web applications into a voice environment.  This will be reflected in upcoming TeleFlow PHP releases which will include libraries, example code, and short tutorial videos to help cultivate this convergence.

Those of you who are long time users of TeleFlow will notice that our teleflow.org, is now the primary portal for not only the TeleFlow application, but also its help files which are now online.  Documentation is now expressed in Wiki format, which means that help can be expanded by anyone who wants to contribute.  There are volumes of useful information which are already linked directly to TeleFlow Designer (TeleFlow 2008 Update).  With time, users add help, PHP, XML and other solutions that could be helpful to the world.

My Crashy Little SIP Phone

[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 07.11.08 under Uncategorized

Sometimes I miss my “plain old telephone”. OK, that’s a lie. I miss my plain old telephone almost every day. Our office made the move to SIP phones some time ago now for a host of reasons. The simplest of them was that we needed to know that this stuff really works, and how. We’ve long since sorted that out, and as far as “working” goes, SIP/VoIP is serving us well(Just how well it works for us is another issue entirely, and one I will not discuss here. Not today, anyway).

What isn’t serving me well is my SIP phone. It has an absolutely horrendous speaker phone, which I would swear cuts out over its own output. It’s also the first phone I’ve ever encountered that will Mute touch-tones(I.e. If I hit the Mute button to stop the speaker phone from cutting itself out, I can’t punch in touch-tones when interacting with an automated system). Sometimes, when you mis-dial a number and hang up, the previous mis-dialed number stays in memory, so that the next time you dial a proper number, the two numbers are concatenated, and you get a nice long string that doesn’t do anything(besides wasting your time, of course).

There are a few additional issues with it that leave me wanting, but here’s the one that really kills me: I, and others I work with, have been heard - repeatedly, mind you - to utter the words “My SIP phone just crashed.”.

Not a big deal, you say?

Then let me take you back a few years, to a time before SIP phones… It was an innocent time, where picking up a phone handset always meant getting a dial-tone (and if not, it meant a cord had simply come loose); it was a simpler time, where my simple phone didn’t know what a “subnet mask” or “IP address” was; it was a less confusing time, one in which my phone never told me I was unauthorized or forbidden, which was fine, because I didn’t think I should need anyone to give me permission to place a call; and of course, it was a time where we could take many things about our phones for granted, including the fact that no matter how much you used them, they would never “reboot” on you.

The little bit of pleading we did with the company we purchased the phones from in the early going fell on deaf ears, probably because they were literally deaf from the 1000’s of screams and moans of frustration.

I’m not here to condemn SIP/VoIP(although… no, no I won’t); I don’t wish to bite the hand that feeds me(or perhaps the hand that I’m promises it will feed me just as soon as it fully earns everyones trust). I really just hope that my sad little tale will remind everyone to tread carefully in this bold new(ish) era, and (unlike me) choose the new hardware that goes with it wisely.

Open Source Series - Part 1: The Magic that Makes it Viable

[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 06.30.08 under Uncategorized

INTRODUCTION

One of the most generally misunderstood aspects of software today is Open Source.  This post explains what I feel is the most important point that makes Open Source work for all interested parties.

When we started development of TeleFlow in 1994, our mission was to provide the world with a very simple to use telecommunications development and deployment product that could be used by people who were generally knowledgeable about computers and databases, and negate the need to have a degree in telecommunications engineering.   The idea was to use a design environment (TeleFlow Designer, which was inspired by Visio) in order to develop flow diagrams.  The resulting files would then be loaded and run by TeleFlow Server.  The application was a success and enabled people to easily develop simple IVR systems.  However, the demands of the market required us to develop more and more functionality (call switching, conferencing, call recording, IP support, multiple protocols and so on), and by 1999 we found ourselves overwhelmed with feature requests.  It got to the point where we pondered going Open Source in order to readily have others extend the server environment.

We made this decision to remain closed because we did not properly understand the nature of Open Source.  Because of it, we worked a good deal harder than we ever should have had to, and could not include contract developers because of concerns about the source code escaping.  In retrospect, we would have been much better off, if we had not let fear guide our decision making process.

WHAT WAS, AND IS STILL NOT WELL UNDERSTOOD

At the time, we believed that Open Source meant that the person or company lost control of ownership rights, and therefore all hope of generating revenue.  It really seemed like a modern form of communism had taken hold, and been renamed “Open Source”.  In some ways, this is actually true, but only if looked at in a negative light.   However, the point that is often missed is that fact that the owner of the software has every right to do what he or she pleases with it.  This is the key aspect of Open Source. It can be dual licensed.

The term “dual-licensing” was very much cemented into our minds by the creators of MySQL.  When Google needed a database that they could augment to the core in order to run their proprietary queries with, they approached MySQL.  Google naturally didn’t want to share back their innovations to the rest of the world, for a while at least, so the Open Source license was not an option.  To satisfy Google, and make some money in the process, MySQL dual licensed their “free” software to a commercial version.  In other words, MySQL effectively “sold” their open source software as closed source, or to put it another way, Google bought the right to use the MySQL database however they saw fit.  This was possible due to the fact that MySQL owned the code, so they could provide it for free in one license and sell it under another.

THE OWNER OF OPEN SOURCE CAN SELL IT LIKE NO OTHER

This is the magic and the testament to Open Source.   The owner of an Open Source project can sell or provide it under other licenses.  No one else has the rights to do this, unless they too license the software from the owner.  Revenue opportunity kicks in when a company wants to sell your product along with their closed source application.  Without dual licensing, this would not be possible.

Please check back for future blog entries about Open Source where we discuss issues of fairness, upsides, a major downside, and community building.  We will also be announcing a major contest based on the upcoming TeleFlow Open Source release.

Audio and the Art of Editing - Part 1

[ No Comments ] Posted on 06.20.08 under Uncategorized

One of the challenges for developers of telecommunications systems with IVR interfaces is the voice work.  Very often this can be a tedious effort which is often passed over when the developer does not have a good sounding voice near by.   Unfortunately, or perhaps rightfully so, the perception of a good system and one that is less desirable often comes down to the voice work.

TeleFlow Designer includes a very simple voice recording system built into the Voice Script Manager section.  It was always intended to work as a quick way to initialize the voice recordings (wav files) so that the system would have a voice as it was being developed.  Later, we would use CoolEdit to quickly re-record all the voice files in one person’s voice.  CoolEdit has since disappeared, but in its place is a new product.

It’s called Audacity, and its a great multi-track sound editor that works well for recording files.  Please refer to the following link for download location.

http://teleflow.org/wiki/?title=Standard_Software_Installations#Sound_Editing

This open source application is freely downloadable and is very helpful for when you need to re-record your entire system in one sitting.   It should be easy enough for your voice talent to do their own editing, and making it possible to have a professional sounding front end.

If you do decide to adopt it for your TeleFlow development, ensure that you set the preferences to 16bit, 8000hz, Mono files.  If you do not do this, then you will need to convert all your files from the format.  That’s one of the few obvious features missing from this software.

As it turns out, TeleFlow 2008 includes a new program (TFWaveToStandard.exe) which will help you convert all your Wav files en-mass to the TeleFlow standard.   Look for this functional, along with Designer and Server updates in the next release of TeleFlow due late June.

First TeleFlow Contest Won!

[ No Comments ] Posted on 06.02.08 under Uncategorized

A winner has been chosen for the first TeleFlow.org competition!

Cindy French from Vancouver, Canada won the $500.00 prize for her text messaging idea.  Her details and the application concept will be posted soon.

TeleFlow contests are ongoing and everyday the prize money increases, don’t miss out on the opportunity to win money!

 

teleflow.org is finally here, and this is our official first post!

[ No Comments ] Posted on 05.01.08 under Uncategorized

It’s a difficult decision to determine what the first official post should be about. What should it be? Creative? Grand in nature? Broad in scope?

Well, that’s not what we are here for, and just like a great presenter does when walking into a room of crowded with people … you start with introductions. Here they are:

The company: We are engenic – the company that created TeleFlow. TeleFlow is a telecommunications application development environment used to deploy automated telephone based applications. Originally, we built it to help improve the systems that everyone hated. You probably remember the systems that were put in place to prevent you from reaching the correct person. The world’s use of telecommunications has changed a lot since then, and our vision was sound.

We have just launched teleflow.org and we are very proud of it. This website provides everything you need to know about the TeleFlow software and the products built up around it. It also provides information on what you can create using it, open source software, and access to developers worldwide who are also invested time and energy into building TeleFlow

But, there is so much more to it. This website isn’t just about software. It is more about people, or at least it will be. Over time, we hope to attract people who have a passion for telecommunications, telephony, custom application development and trends that affect us all.

We’ll also talk about people and companies we meet along the way that are doing good things in the industries we play in. In this industry, we meet so many wonderful people who have great ideas. We will definitely give them mention, as well as people we just hear about but that we want to talk about. Oh and just to see if you are paying attention, every once in awhile we may toss in something completely off topic.

There will be no shortage of entertainment, fun and passion in this blog. We also want to hear from you. By virtue that you are reading this, you are exactly the type of person we want to get to know better. Take part, contribute, and get to know us. Who knows what opportunities we can work on together.

So, it’s official. Our first blog entry is complete, we are now jumping head first into the blogosphere. If you have questions or comments, please ask. We are always listening.

PS: We have contests for everyone as a kick off! What fun! Check them out on the home page.

World meet teleflow.org, teleflow.org meet world

[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 04.10.08 under Uncategorized

Thank you for visiting the brand new teleflow.org. This website and blog is for everyone who has either owned a telephone, used a telephone, or been affected by a telephone in some way… both good or bad.

We will keep this short for now, and then gradually re-introduce TeleFlow software and the new open source software environments created for it in the coming days.