shop for SIMtrace

The WebShop for the SIMtrace hardware can be found here. We are using a CA-Cert signed SSL certificate and your browser vendor might not like it.

Setting up, or mostly modifying the webshop was my first encounter with rails. In some ways it is a great framework, in others with a Smalltalk background there are some tears in my eyes. This is using spreecommerce because I wanted something that is not done in PHP and is not following the OpenCore business model.

The manual of spreecommerce is actually great from an engineering point of view, they describe the concepts, the models and how to modify it. But they are bit short on setting it up. There are some config options where no Graphical way to change them exists yet. So it is best to look into the app_configuration.rb of spree_core, e.g. to modify the default country.

There are still some bits that I would like to change, the code for my modification can be found on gitorious.

Going down the Sangoma rabbit hole

I ended up needing to configure FreeSWITCH to use a Sangoma ISDN card. At first we were foolish and used the setup script to install libraries into our system.

Cleaning up

It took dpkg -S and manual filtering to clean this mess. On a debian system there are files in /usr/ that do not belong to packages, these can be links to /etc/alternatives, or in case of python be bytecode files (*.pyc).

Second attempt with building packages

The next attempt was to use checkinstall -D make install but the source distribution of wanpipe is such a mess that checkinstall refuses to work, I have created a handmade debian package with some split up. The most annoying issues are the installation of .svn, .deps, .libs directories, using /etc/wanpipe for examples and firmware (they belong somewhere else), also installing the package requires to overwrite files of other packages (Linux comes with a wanrouter.ko too). There also appears to be some fishy licensing part, the source distribution is shipping with some .o files, the module claims to be GPL though.

First attempt with FreeSWITCH

FreeSWITCH allows to build debian packages out of the box, and it worked, it also built the freetdm module. But my module was missing support for wanpipe, adding the wanpipe-dev, rebuilding fixed the problem.

Second attempt with FreeSWITCH

After configuring the ISDN card using the wancfg_fs utility (and not allowing it to mess with the free switch config, as it is breaking it), I saw the cards but I was missing a library to actually use the card for Voice Calls.

ISDN libraries

I needed to get the libsng-isdn library, of course without sourcecode, also without a LICENSE file at all. Who may use this library? Under which circumstances? I started with checkinstall but this does not handle shlib providers very well, so I had to package the library myself

Third attempt with FreeSWITCH

I was able to recompile the FreeTDM module, and I could configure the ISDN trunk and use the the fs_cli to orginate a call.

Summary

FreeSWITCH and FreeTDM are quite powerful, also having support for creating debian packages is great too. The Sangoma experience is less exciting.

PayPal must die

This is another rant, today about PayPal. It all started when I tried to buy some credit for the skype callout feature. The overlords at PayPal decided that besides the Post Ident I did to open my account, the verified bank account that is stored in my data I will now need to enter my German Identity Card number. Too bad that the number they have stored is from a card that expired maybe five years ago.

How comes they think the Number is secret after hotels, car rentals, dvd rentals, airlines, ..., started making photo copies of these documents? But to make it worse they have implemented this 'security check' in a way that prevents me of using the normal contact form.

So I took it up with the support, and they proposed me to reset my password, they kept on proposing to reset my password. They offered me to call me, I gave them my hotel + room number but they were not able to figure out the prefix for dialing to China. After three more support emails and proposals to reset my password I know have the instruction to close my account and transfer my balance to my reference account. All they want is my first born though.

I was a bit lazy and have not collected the information they need yet, today I wanted to buy something online, the company is using PayPal Express Checkout, and I am not allowed to pay with my VISA card as Paypal knows some combination of my name and forces me to log into my paypal account (which of course does not work).

Please, someone, fix this payment mess.