Bell's Mind

The tough send bills to GI Joe.

This image is hilarious. Shouts to GI Joe for dropping that on me without notice. The little details (the ripped envelope, the triple folded paper, and the slight bends from handling it) are the icing on the cake.

I've been looking at the site and the current codebase recently and, while I'm happy with the results so far, I think there is a lot that could be improved.

I've started compiling a list of new features and fixes that I'd like to incorporate into the next incarnation of the "Engine" portion of the site and I need some help. So far I know that number submission needs to be a little cleaner, there needs to be more separation between code and content on a few pages, and I'd like to speed the site up (I've got that one nailed down already with preliminary speed increases of at least ten times on most pages).

On top of all of the above there's one feature that is seriously lacking that I have been putting off implementing for a long time. Natas recently brought up to me a good way to get around it which was even more of a kick in the ass to get it done. That feature is searching. Natas simply uses Google to get the job done but I'd like users to not have to leave the site to find what they need. Now my question to the users of Bell's Mind is "How would you like searching to work?".

My current plan is to implement searching by user (done), searching by NPA-NXX (also done), searching by number type, searching by description, searching by any part of the number (country code, NPA, NXX, suffix, etc. including regex stuff if possible), searching by state (done), searching by CLLI (again with regex), and searching by submission date. What else do I need? What format would be the best to present the results? I already have code to present some information graphically on-the-fly (PNG) so suggestions like that are definitely not out of the question.

There you have it... that's what has been bouncing around my brain for the past few weeks. And now for the obligatory "e-mail me!" part... e-mail me.

I was listening to NXR (Nynex Radio) today and I heard them mention an online tone generator. I think it was a standalone Windows application but I'm not sure.

In any case I revived some PHP code that I wrote a while ago that generates tones (single, dual, and triple frequency) and added a link to the links section of my blog. So if you're looking to generate some tones give ToneGen.php a try and let me know what you think.

If you have any suggestions for other tools that I can add here, as always, e-mail me.

The PBX experienced some minor downtime today due to what can only be dubbed "operator n00bness".

I was attempting to write an Asterisk application as a test but didn't modify the makefile correctly. After that it complained that a module was getting loaded twice and then refused to start. After about 5 minutes of poking around it was resolved.

If you experience any other outages please e-mail me.

Well, natas turned me onto another IAX provider the other day.

They have supplied me with a new DID at 720-946-6455. For the meantime it will connect you to the main menu as the 810-223-0003 number does.

I've been getting e-mail about the 914-595-0135 DID being down. Well, it's going to come back up as a voicemail only number for the people that have been allocated Bell's Mind VMBs. Once the bugs are worked out the number will be live again. Until then it's just returning busy signals.

Ok, so I made the move to make Bell's Mind international. So far I've gotten a fairly comprehensive list of country and city codes going but I still need information about dialing plans. Hopefully I'll have that narrowed down in the next few weeks.

I've been doing a lot of Asterisk programming using both AGI and doing source-level mods. I'm going to start a section of the site dedicated to this as soon as I settle on a CMS. Yes, I really want a full blown CMS. Anything that doesn't use PostgreSQL need not apply.

I'm also planning on launching the forums soon... I just need to work out the integration between the Bell's Mind code and the particular forum software I'm playing with. Again, if someone knows a good forum that runs with a PostgreSQL backend please get back to me... I'm starting to lose my mind with the program I'm testing.

That's about it. E-mail me with feedback.

Ok, I've decided that it's time for Bell's Mind to go international.

The issue is now really gathering enough information to make our site useful in other countries. Anyone from any country (other than the US and Canada) please start sending me anything you know about your particular countries numbering scheme. Links to official websites and documents are the best.

The change over is going to take a while but everyone who submits information that gets us started will get credit. It's a large undertaking but I think I owe it to the people outside of my little corner of the Earth that are active in the phreaking community.

I was just alerted to the presense of a nasty bug in the latest Bell's Mind code.

If you click the revision flag and revise a number you haven't submitted yet it will, erroneously, say the operation was a success. I have just updated the code and it appears to be fixed. If you fell victim to this I'm very sorry... I do all I can to make sure the code is bug free.

Shouts to rEph for pointing this out. If anyone still has a problem just e-mail me.