If your a geek like me you’ll love fiddling with computers, have a big box of wires and read Micromart/.net… probably. My most recent project took me into the realms of Linux once again where I dabbled, sweated, typed foreign commands into a foreign OS. The result: a fully working, feature rich call management system.

This cool piece of software lets you use an old (if you like) PC and install a feature rich Call Management System. The only additional things you need are:

  1. A half decent ADSL/broadband connection
  2. Some IP phones (we used Linksys SPA491s from www.netprimates.co.uk)
  3. A working network (most small offices have one of these)
  4. A SIP account with one of the many providers
  5. A bit of patience, and a steady knitting hand

Actually you can forget the knitting hand, its not required. We now use our Trixbox installation for all our calls and route them through a single ADSL connection that allows us to make and receive multiple calls on the same number, record all our incoming and outgoing calls, create ring groups and voicemail accounts, have lovely music on hold and sooo much more. Now how cool is that!

Whats cooler is that the entire setup cost less than £240.00 as we had to buy the handsets. Installation was relatively simple as you simply download an image of the installer CD from the Trixbox site for FREE (get Trixbox CE), burn it to a CD, slot it in your waiting PC and follow the prompts.

Our Trixbox was installed within 1 hour. All that remained was to configure this application to accept our incoming and outgoing calls and we’d be away.

Check back again on December 14th for the next installation of the …uhhh… installation.