asterisk users - Dec 2004 - [Asterisk-Dev] RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisktraining andcertification :: AstriconTraining

Here here, a bit of documentation online would cut down considerably the
traffic on this list asking how to questions.

Cmon sokal, put the questions and training material online.



-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Rich
Adamson
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 4:18 PM
To: Asterisk Developers Mailing List; Asterisk Users Mailing List -
Non-Commercial Discussion
Cc: kwik@lists.digium.com
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] [Asterisk-Dev] RE: [Asterisk-biz]
Asterisktraining andcertification :: AstriconTraining
> I'm in agree with Brian for the following reasons:
> - By principle I'm against the certification: it is not a proof of 
> knowledge.
> - Certification is discriminatory: only the people from the "first 
> world" should be certificated, USD $ 3.275,00 is one year salary for 
> many  engineers in developing countries. If you add travel, hotel,
etc. 
> it can reach 2 year salary.
> 
> Why they do not post the 150 question exam in the web and provide 
> certification for peoples who answer correctly? Free of course.
> 
Ease up gentlemen. Certifications don't mean anything in most
environments,
and particularly in asterisk work.

Certifications have been used by manufacturers for years, but mostly
from
a marketing and sales perspective. In other words, its another source of
revenue for the _company_ (primarily) and establishes some level of
bragging
rights for their _sales_ people when trying to convince a customer to
buy
their stuff. It's really a very small piece of market differentiation
and nothing more. (Don't get me wrong, there are a few very well
respected 
certifications and those have some meaning behind them. But, they only
have value when a fairly large group of individuals are attempting to
sell the exact same customer, or in employee promotions. This is
certainly 
not the case with asterisk at this time in any city.)

Anyone can develop a training course and anyone can print a piece of
paper that says your certified. If you don't like the one proposed, then
develop your own list of 150 questions, complete the answers, and print
yourself a piece of paper for free. You'll get the exact same effect.
Your customers and/or employer will never check into the questions that
you had to answer, and over half the time certified people don't have
skills to accomplish the objective anyway (particularly when there isn't
an industry-respected skills test at the end).

On the other hand, many on the -Users and -Dev list already know there
is a dramatic need for education, and this one just happens to be one 
that has stepped up to the plate. Given the stated price, it won't help
the 80% that are trying to implement * at home with a $10 pstn card
though. :(

I hope they expand the training effort to not only address "how to"
configure and deploy *, but maybe sometime in the future address 
topics related to * development as well.

Rich


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Hi,

dean collins wrote:
> Here here, a bit of documentation online would cut down considerably the
> traffic on this list asking how to questions.
There is enough information "online" at the moment probably the
ability
to find/search your anwers is very limited. First above anything Wiki's 
are good, it makes it easy for all kind of people to put something 
online. In an ideal situation you want a Wiki 'Expert System' before 
your mailinglist. There is much information online but nobody seems to 
know, or is able to find it. This is not Asterisk related but more a 
general problem of the 21th century.

Microsoft put a kind of question-answer system inside Windows98 (and 
maybe 95) maybe it is not that bad at all to cut down traffic.


I pick a random example:
> Can anybody explain me the difference between monitoring and recording?
> 
> Can I record a conversation during a phone call, e.g., I find that I should
note that, and press "7" to record till I press again "7"
(or whatever key is good for that.) while the rest of the phone call will be not
recorded!
> 
> bye
> 
> Ronald
$ What is your problem related to?
 > difference between monitoring and recording

$ Answer: The actions monitoring and recording differ, while cmd monitor 
records incomming and outgoing channels to different soundfiles, cmd 
record acts as a prompt for voice input.
$ Is this the answer you are looking for?
 > Yes, show examples

$ Good;
cmd monitor ->
  exten => 2060,1,Answer
  exten => 2060,2,Wait(1)
  exten => 2060,3,Monitor(wav,myfilename)
  exten => 2060,4,Meetme(1,ps)

cmd Record ->
[recordings]
exten => 500,1,Festival('Please record your message')
exten => 500,2,Record(mymessage:gsm)
exten => 500,3,Festival('You said')
exten => 500,4,Playback(mymessage)
exten => 500,5,Festival('Press 1 to continue or 2 to change your
message')
exten => 500,6,ResponseTimeout(3)

exten => t,1,Festival('Sorry, I did not get that')
exten => t,2,Goto(500,5)

exten => i,1,Festival('Sorry, that is an invalid choice')
exten => i,2,Goto(500,5)

exten => 1,1,System(/bin/mv /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/mymessage.gsm 
/var/lib/asterisk/sounds/local/${TIMESTAMP}.gsm)
exten => 1,2,Festival('Thank you, your recording has been saved.')
exten => 1,3,Festival('Press 3 to record another file or 4 to hang
up')

exten => 2,1,Goto(500,1)

 > explain cmd Record example

$ Which lines?
.........

(I have no clue if this answer is correct but it is the way I 
interpreted the wiki pages 
http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=Asterisk%20cmd%20Record and 
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+cmd+monitor)

This isn't even futuristic and probably a xmpp://theanswer@asterisk.org 
makes a nice jabber interface to it.
> Cmon sokal, put the questions and training material online.
I think there is effort in this question/training material and if it was 
released under the GNU Free Documentation License many people would be 
happy. Other people would be able to contribute cases/questions/etc, but 
from a business point of view somebody started this on their own (which 
looks to me a bit strange in a OSS-community), and now have a 'real' 
Asterisk certification for it, so don't bother if you don't like it, 
ofcourse you/we can start a Free Online Asterisk Certification Program.

Someone once told me something about cisco certs, cisco prefers to hire 
non-cisco certified people over cisco-certified people because they 
learned by theirselves the knowledge required to work there. (He was 
core designer... without any certs). Don't know if it is true, but I do 
like the spirit behind it.



Stefan de Konink