Dear Avid Reader,

Since getting my Eee PC, I’ve been reading about the ability to overclock the FSB (Front Side Bus). This bus has the capability of running at 100mhz (as opposed to the default 70mhz). The net effect of this is that the CPU speed increases to 900 Mhz from the normal 630 Mhz (which is 70% of 900 Mhz of course!). You must if course be running Ubuntu to do this!

Once you have downloaded the scripts from [here], run the following commands from within the unpacked archive:

sudo ./tweak-gnome.sh
sudo ./install.sh all

Then reboot your EeePC

After doing this, Pressing Fn-F6 will automatically enable the FSB increase, and various other fixes for the EeePC will start working, namely;

• Asus Eee kernel modules
• ACPI support (suspend, hotkeys)
• overclocking code
• Wifi support
• Sound
• Boot speed
• Additional software sources
• Skype two way video

All this can be found on the Ubuntu Eee Wiki located here: http://ubuntu-eee.tuxfamily.org/

Now I know that I have already told you how to do a lot of this in my article about installing Ubuntu on an EeePC, but this does take a lot of the hassle out of it, and it definately gets the overclocking working!

Bluetooth

There has been lots of mods popping up lately that allows you to install a Bluetooth dongle inside your EeePC utilising the additional USB connections that are hidden on the motherboard… well you could of course use a tiny USB dongle like this. You can pick these up for £10, and its a lot less hassle than getting the soldering iron out! One supplier is Novatech [link]

As part of my ‘real-world’ job, I write decoders and web interfaces for PABX auditing tools. This is a job that I have done now for nearly 18 years!

I decided therefore avid reader, that you should have a little look at what I do!

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Imagine that you have 50 telephone systems in your network, and 10,000 extensions hanging off those PABX’s. How on earth do you audit them?Lets look at the options;

• “Man in a van”
• Remote Audit via proprietary software
• Rely on your maintainer’s site records

Man in a Van

Whilst this can be effective, it is has huge cost and environmental disadvantages. In addition, it is hugely time-consuming and can be inaccurate (imagine 10 different engineers all documenting the information in a different manner)

Remote Audit via Vendor Software

Ok - this is quite useful, but generally not particularly effective when you have multiple PABX’s. The reasons are; 

• You cannot automate the process
• You cannot compile the data to give a enterprise view of your estate
• The information is proprietary to each vendor

Rely on Maintainers Site Records

Really?  :o)

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So… a solution was required…We needed basically achieve the following tasks;

1. Capture the configuration of a PABX regardless of the Vendor
2. Store that information centrally
3. Allow reporting of the configuration in a common manner (that didn’t require PABX training)
4. Provide “enterprise” reports
5. Allow these reports to be run from ANY machine without installing any software (basically, “Web-based”)
6. Allow non-trained users to ‘explore’ the PABX in a tree-like manner
7. Automatically show any changes between two scans (e.g. “Swaps” or “Moves and Changes”)

The solution was “Asset Manager” - This application, borne from the company I work for, meets all of the about and more.

At present we support Mitel, Nortel, Siemens, Avaya, Ericsson and 3Com PABX’s, with more being added all the time. There is a live online demonstration at www.mit-comms.co.uk/asset_manager.asp which lets you explore the ‘tree’ and other reports.

The report engine is written to work with IE5.5+, Opera and FireFox without any plugins or applets.

Here are some examples of the reports it generates:-