asterisk users - May 2004 - Newbie voiceplus + asterisk

I have a linux computer with a sound card, I want to place a call to a
cell phone using asterisk and my voiceplus account.  I can use kphone
(linux app) to call voiceplus, but I am hoping to learn to use some of
the cooler features of asterisk.  I am lost.

On my debian installation there is no man page...  Powerful package, I'm
excited by the possibilities, but I don't know where to start. 16
configuration files and hundreds of pages of wiki later I find:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+voicepulse+connect?PHPSESSID=65c54fd39ecfe6dd398711fa2e94b6b6

which is pretty much the same place I was with the voiceplus page: 
http://www.voicepulse.com/kb/index.php?page=index_v2&id=45&c=11

I have set up the exten => line in extentions.conf.  
[default]
exten => _1NXXNXXXXXX,1,Dial,IAX2/AbCdEfg@voicepulse/${EXTEN} 

What do I do now?

I can start asterisk : asterisk -vvvvc 

*CLI> dial 17185551212
No such extension '17185551212' in context 'local'

I try to start asterisk in the background: asterisk & 
ps shows it is definitely running.  I try:  astman localhost and astman
127.0.0.1 etc.

Connect Failed | 127.0.0.1 failed: Connection refused 

Do I have to use kphone as a client to call the local asterisk server?
How do I do that? Can't I use 'CLI> dial' ?  I was hoping to send
a
soundfile. 

Thanks for any clarifications,

-- 
Marco

On Wed, May 12, 2004 at 10:25:54PM -0400, marco@metm.org
wrote:
> *CLI> dial 17185551212
> No such extension '17185551212' in context 'local'
ok I added :

[local]
include => default

to extensions.conf and I get :

 May 12 22:31:43 WARNING[311316]: chan_iax2.c:1732 create_addr: No such
 host: voicepulse
 May 12 22:31:43 NOTICE[311316]: app_dial.c:527 dial_exec: Unable to
 create channel of type 'IAX2'
   == Everyone is busy at this time

-- 
Marco

ok, I got it voicepulse vs voiceplus

more questions coming I am sure...

-- 
Marco