Author Archives: MichelV69
Viva La Revolution – No, Really
The new normal So “it has begun” as the saying goes. Right now, I am living on the north shore of Prince Edward Island, Canada. There are four of us living in a wonderfully large house, and all of us in one fashion or another want to do something with the next ten years of our lives. I run a reasonably successful telecom business, and I am an internationally published author. I am working as part of an RPG game development …
Review – High School Musical “Rocking The Ages”
“Rocking The Ages” is an adaptation of the Broadway play “Rock of Ages”, brought into the realm of High School musical. Produced by the Montreal English School Board’s Macdonald High School, it was a remarkably well delivered show which ran from the 18th to the 20th of April, 2013. It’s a delightful and slightly risque return to an era of music that was a herald of a world in the geopolitical closure of one era and the step forward into …
Consulting Blues – The Expensive Customer
Recently I put a bid forward on a “Request For Quotation” (RFQ) as part of my telecom consulting job. Unfortunately, the potential customer’s RFQ was essentially “go watch this YouTube video, and build something like that. It should be easy, so I only want to pay $200″. The video was essentially someone talking about a proof-of-concept project they had done. None of the back-end infrastructure was discussed; it was apparently Asterisk based, and used a database of some kind to …
Quick Hacks: Asterisk account codes, Ruby programming, and the Freshbooks API
I put together a quick hack last night that will help with managing truant accounts on JKL5′s “Cloudphones” SMB VoIP PBX. Ostensibly, it’s a pre-paid service for small to medium businesses, as well as a couple of residential customers. However, we have a couple of problem accounts that require checking on the accounts payable report followed by a few nagging emails to get to pay their bills at the 45 day mark. In each trunk and phone configuration, I have the customer’s …
On Just Being Amazon
“At least it’s a good reason and not just Amazon being Amazon.” – Seen on Twitter I saw that come across my Twitter feed this morning, and it gave me pause. Mostly because I wasn’t sure what it meant. I know that Amazon is reknowned within Internet pop-culture for being both secretive and autocratic in it’s operations. They Just Do Stuff, often in a fashion that seems counter-intuitive to both common sense and “popular opinion”. I know that Amazon’s owner, Jeff …
Are You Crew?
Well, look at that! It’s the first Friday in December! That means I have a contest to announce! Are you a fan of The Sauder Diaries? Do you think that you’d fit right in with Hans, Annika, Arrietta and the rest of the scoundrels of the Bloody Rose? Are you pretty damn sure you wouldn’t be owing anyone 10% of your pay shares? Here’s your chance! Send me an email to “michel@michelrvaillancourt.com”, with the subject of “I’m Crew!”. In your …
