Now that the worst has subsided, I’ll tell you all a little story.  This year, in getting prepared for my last Formal at Trent, I went to grab a beer out of the fridge, but couldn’t remember how long it had been in there (I had left it at Trina’s house some time ago - likely October…. it was now March). I looked at the bottling date, but couldn’t remember what Owen had described as the breakdown of the bottling code. Then I thought, what if there was a site I could punch in the bottling code, and it would tell me if the beer was skunky or not.   Now, any idiot can drink a stale bottle of beer trying to rationalize that "it’s beer man.. just drink it"; but do you not notice the difference in taste? A cold refreshing bottle of Blue deserves a little more respect than to ‘just drink it’. So, i told some people there, that I should build this website that checks the bottling code, and tells you if you can drink the beer.

Months later, I have accomplished that very thing - www.beerbuddy.ca (now with Google AdSense) and a limited selection of beers.  I built the site in a about a day, and then spent weeks trying to decide on a domain name that was available. I really wanted to get a .com, but most of the good ones were taken - so i stuck with beerbuddy.ca. 

The results of my experiment with AdSense also surprised me.  I signed up for AdSense on Thursday… they said it would take 2 days or so to verify my site and account.  Two to three days later, I received notice that my account had been activated. I dumped some code onto the site, and I was displaying ads right away - mind you the ads were PSAs until Google could index my site - which happen a few hours later.  Now I was serving real ads, targetted to the text on my page.  I then thought about how to get some traffic started to my site. Associating beer with the type of person who might visit CollegeHumor.com, or read Maxxim, Stuff, or FHM, I decided to submit a link to all of those sites, and then I went to bed. 

I was pretty busy last week, so I didn’t really think much about the site until late Wednesday night, when I decided to see if my webstats showed anything more than the 21 or so people that had visited previously.  I typed in the URL…. "501 Bandwidth Exceeded?" What the?  Something must be broken on the server.. I login to the reseller interface to see that 1GB of traffic had been consumed in little more than a day.  I boosted the bandwidth on the account to 3GB, and went back to the site.. looks fine. I checked the stats again… 23,597 unique visitors!?! Something’s gotta be wrong…that has to be the whole server’s stats, I thought.. Scrolling down the page to the referers, I was amazed. CollegeHumour had posted my link, and I was in disbelief.  My next instinct was to check my AdSense ads…. 6 clicks? i thought after logging into AdSense…thats only like $1.63.  And then I looked a more into the report… $1.63 was only for today.. I clicked "All time"..  $51.73?! with 267 clicks on Tuesday causing a whopping $50.35 USD to be amassed in a single day. Wow.

So, if you haven’t already checked out BeerBuddy, please do so, and let me know what beers I should add next, or what I can improve, I’d love some feedback on the site - drop it in the comments of this post. And, if you haven’t already tried placing some AdSense ads on your site, give it a shot; previosuly, I thought nobody ever clicked those ads, much like my banner ads on Script-Source.com years ago (I think i accumulated $50 in 1.5 years!.. and then the company tanked and I never got my money).

I used to think FedEx was a bit more reliable than Canada’s own Xpresspost, but I’m having some difficulties getting my RMA’d shipment from Digium. I sent them my defective FXS module, almost 2 weeks ago, and surprisingly enough, Xpresspost made it there in no time.  I received delivery confirmation from Xpresspost, and then waited.. and waited some more.. nothing.. So I decided to email Digium to see what the holdup was…. a day later, I get an email saying my package had shipped with a tracking number. That was on Thursday or Wednesday of last week. 

 I’ve been checking my shipment every day since..

What I find strange is that the package apparently left MADISON, AL and hit MISSISSAUGA in no time at all, is held for duties/taxes.. and then… nothing.. (it was the long weekned, thats ok), but then it gets sent to MEMPHIS, TN?? and then back to MISSISSAUGA where its held again for clearance, and then again for duties and taxes? And then it receives 4 Int’l Shipment Releases? I’m confused… Anyone have any clarification for me as to what might be going on?

Update: It seems the package has now found its way to Peterborough’s sorting facility. I expect it this afternoon, if FedEx delivers when I think they do.

Update 2: The package arrived, I installed it, only to find that it still doesn’t work. I’ve opened a support ticket with their technicians, so we’ll so what comes out of it. Also.. it seems I had to pay taxes on it? Is this a regular occurence?  I mean, I paid for the original one.. (and paid taxes+duties)… it was defective, so i sent it back, and they sent me a replacement, and I was charged taxes on that as well? Anyone know what the deal is for something like that?

Update 3: Finally got it working, not sure how it was magic. I installed the latest version of Asterisk@Home and fired it up. It worked, just like that!

So after buying some Digium Asterisk equipment 2 years ago, I finally had time to put it together, and find out that my FXS had to be RMA’d, so part of it is on its way here from FedEx.  I loaded up Asterisk@Home 1.0, and its pretty snappy - so far, I’ve got:

• Voicemail
• IVR and Automated Voice Attendant
• Music On Hold, Conference Calling, Incoming and Outgoing calls on my POTS line (PlainOldTelephone System)
• I’m thinking about getting connectivity from Unlimitel when I move to Ottawa instead of getting a Bell Line, and see how that works.
• Email on Voicemail

More to come!