State of the Prototype

System requirements and characteristics:

- the Asterisk prototype has been written for and tested on a PC running Windows XP

- it has been successfully tested under Microsoft Vista

- the prototype is based on Mozilla Firefox version 2.0.0.4

- changes/additions to FireFox allow an asterisk to be displayed in domain names.  This addressing token is used for convenience, the names themselves are registered in a slightly more complex standard format

Known issues (features and bugs):

- On first starting Asterisk after downloading and installing, an 'Error 404, Page not Found' will be displayed.  Since Asterisk is based on Firefox 2.x it attempts to present a welcome page from Mozilla, but that page was removed when Firefox 2.x was replaced by the current Firefox 3.x offering.  This has no impact on the function of Asterisk.  If you have the more recent version of Firefox installed, Asterisk will check for compatibility of any plug-ins you have installed, and will present your home page under a separate tab.

- If you run Firefox 3 after opening Asterisk, you will be served a welcome page and Firefox will again check for plug-in compatibility.  If you subsequently re-start Asterisk, the sequence of events described above will repeat.

- Google's Gmail may crash the browser when your message includes an example of a multiplexed name.  It seems that Gmail tries to pre-fetch and resolve the domain name (it also interprets interpunctuated stings of digits as IP numbers).  Other mail systems don't exhibit this behavior.  Since Firefox doesn't crash under the same circumstances, the problem is an Asterisk-specific bug.

- the browser does not translate [name]*0.tld into the intended [name].tld

- names written with upper case MLX--[name]--[number] are not translated, only lower case mlx--[name]--[number].  If you enter a name in with upper case MLX-- the browser presents the name on the address bar with lower case mlx--.  If you then press Enter the address is translated to the * format

- if you already run Firefox, Asterisk will adopt your current settings and bookmarks.  New bookmarks saved in Asterisk will load into FireFox automatically.

Comments and fault reports are welcomed.

Last updated October 25, 2008