asterisk users - Aug 2004 - Very decent book - "VoIP Telephony with Asterisk"

Just received my copy of this book today. Based on a cursory examination,
"VoIP Telephony with Asterisk" (VTwA) by Paul Mahler looks like a very
decent book for anyone starting out with Asterisk. More knowledgeable
readers may also benefit from perusing its 290 pages as well.

Unlike "Asterisk for Small Office Setup" (which I slammed in a review
a
couple of weeks ago) VTwA has a useable table of contents and index. In
addition, fonts and white space are used in a reasonable way and the book
appears to have been copy edited. (If you're wondering why I find it
necessary to even mention these aspects, which normally we take for granted,
see my "Small Office" comments.) There's also some helpful
checklists in the
back and a glossary.

The book covers all the basics of installing and configuring Asterisk and
goes beyond that in several places. Here are some parts of the book I found
especially helpful:

1. The book passed one of my personal tests in that it has a couple of pages
on faxing.

2. The 22 page chapter on the Cisco 7960 was very helpful. The only other
phone covered in depth is the Snom. Hopefully, future editions will cover
more phones such as the Grandstream, SwissVoice, Polycom, Uniden and devices
such as the Sipura 2000.

3. The chapter covering T-carrier and SONET (think T1)

4. The sections on SIP

Admittedly, books such as this will become obsolete quickly until Asterisk
slows its rate of change. However, if you're a book person, as I am, I think
it'll be worth the price. I'm planning to buy a copy for each of my
customers.

[Note: I have no affiliation whatsoever with the author or anyone mentioned
in the acknowledgements.]


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