System information

Project (http://www.asteriskdocs.org), with the goal of writing an Asterisk book for the
community. That project became the basis of the first edition of this book, Asterisk:
The Future of Telephony.
Nine years later, I’m still writing Asterisk documentation and have become the primary
bug marshal and release manager for the Asterisk project, spoken at every single
AstriCon since 2004 (at which Jared and I spoke about the Asterisk Documentation
Project; I still have the AsteriskDocs magnet his wife made), and become a consultant
specializing in database integration (thanks Tilghman for func_odbc) and clustering
(thanks Mark Spencer for DUNDi). I really love Asterisk, and all that it’s allowed me
to do.
First, thanks to my parents Rick and Carol, for the understanding and support in ev-
erything I’ve done in my life. From the first computer they purchased for far too much
money when I was in grade 6 (I started taking an interest in computers in grade 2 using
a Commodore 64, and they got me a computer after a parent-teacher interview a few
years later) to letting me use the home phone line for my BBS endeavors (and eventually
getting me my own phone line), and everything else they have ever done for me, I can
never thank them enough. I love you both more than you’ll ever imagine.
Thanks to my Grandma T for letting me use her 286 during the years when I didn’t
have a computer at home, and for taking me shopping every year on my birthday for
15 years. Love lots!
To my beautiful wife, Danielle, for setting the alarm every morning before she left for
work, letting me sleep those extra 10 minutes before starting on this book, and under-
standing when I had to work late because I went past my 9 A.M. stop-writing time,
thank you and I love you so much.
There are so many people who help me and teach me new things every day, but the
most influential on my life in Asterisk are the following: Mark Spencer for writing
software that has given me a fantastic career, John Todd for his early examples, Brian
K. West for his early help and enthusiasm on IRC, Steve Sokol and Olle Johansson for
flying me to my first AstriCon (and subsequent ones!) and letting me be part of the first
Asterisk training classes, Jared Smith for helping start the documentation project and
doing all the infrastructure that I could never have done, Jim Van Meggelen for joining
in early on the project and teaching me new ways to look at life, and Russell Bryant for
being an amazing project leader and easy to work with every day, and for not holding
a grudge about the bush.
Jim Van Meggelen
When we set out to write the very first edition of this book over five years ago, we were
confident that Asterisk was going to be a huge success. Now, a half-decade later, we’ve
written this third edition of what the worldwide Asterisk community calls “The Asterisk
Book,” and we’ve matured from revolutionaries into Asterisk professionals.
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