March 14, 2008

More on Asterisk (Evolution)

I wanted to change the email message that’s sent out when someone leaves a voicemail. The easy way would be to modify /etc/asterisk/voicemail.conf, adding the following to the “[general]” section: emailbody=New voicemail message received\n\nDuration: ${VM_DUR}\nTime: ${VM_DATE}\nSender: ${VM_CALLERID}\n\n\t\t\t\t–Asterisk\n Of course, on Evolution…
March 11, 2008

Notes from the NGP Meeting, March 11

I managed to get the NGP meeting today and took some notes, which I thought by be useful to a few readers. (Click the link below for more.) Topics and speakers were: OMB Update — Marguerite Pridgen Mandatory Grants Panel — Sheldon Edner…

NGMA formalizing key grants management knowledge for certification

The Association ha contracted with the Professional Examination Services (PES) to conduct a study that will formalize the qualifications and knowledge required to be certified as a Certified Grants Management Specialist (CGMS). This demonstrates the NGMA’s commitment to creating a certification that will…

Today’s NGP Meeting: Change of Webcast address

Due to technical difficulties, the address for the Webcast of today’s NGP meeting has been changed to http://www.thengp.org/meetings/20080311/Registration.htm. Register there ahead of the event to get all of the video goodness, courtesy of Ken Fang and the good folks at…
March 9, 2008

Asterisk and Evolution

We’ve just switched from a regular VOIP vendor to an in-house Asterisk PBX with a T‑1. The results have been good so far — we have much less delay on calls, and a heck of a lot more control over our phones and our…
March 7, 2008

Heed the advice of Darren Ash!

Darren Ash joined the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as CIO a few months ago and had a guest column published in The Federal Times this week. You can read it here. (Disclosure: Darren was a client of ours at DOT.) In the column,…

J instead of smiley face in Thunderbird

So I’ve been using Thunderbird for about 16 months now, and I finally decided to fix an annoyance. Anytime I get an email from someone using Outlook (often), any smiley faces they use in their message come across as the letter “J”.…

NGP meeting: March 11

Judging on several of my recent posts, I think I’ve become the grants community’s social secretary! Here’s another one for your diaries: The National Grants Partnership (NGP) meeting is on March 11th at the Department of Education in Washington, DC. You…
March 6, 2008

2007 ExcellenceGov Awards White Paper released!

We finally completed the white paper documenting the lessons learned by the top five winners of last year’s Excellence.Gov Awards, and you can grab it here. The theme in 2007 was Lessons Learned to Leverage Technology to Enhance Collaboration. There…

Register for the 2008 Excellence.Gov Awards luncheon!

Registration is now open for the annual Excellence.Gov Awards luncheon, where all 20 of the award winners (list here) will be honored. The theme this year is “Improving Organizational Performance Using Information Technology”. (Disclosure: I’m the co-chair of the awards…