[Asterisk-Users] Newbie voiceplus + asterisk

[marco at metm.org]

I have a linux computer with a sound card, I want to place a call to a
cell phone using asterisk and my voiceplus account.  I can use kphone
(linux app) to call voiceplus, but I am hoping to learn to use some of
the cooler features of asterisk.  I am lost.

On my debian installation there is no man page...  Powerful package, I'm
excited by the possibilities, but I don't know where to start. 16
configuration files and hundreds of pages of wiki later I find:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+voicepulse+connect?PHPSESSID=65c54fd39ecfe6dd398711fa2e94b6b6

which is pretty much the same place I was with the voiceplus page: 
http://www.voicepulse.com/kb/index.php?page=index_v2&id=45&c=11

I have set up the exten => line in extentions.conf.  
[default]
exten => _1NXXNXXXXXX,1,Dial,IAX2/AbCdEfg at voicepulse/${EXTEN} 

What do I do now?

I can start asterisk : asterisk -vvvvc 

*CLI> dial 17185551212
No such extension '17185551212' in context 'local'

I try to start asterisk in the background: asterisk & 
ps shows it is definitely running.  I try:  astman localhost and astman
127.0.0.1 etc.

Connect Failed | 127.0.0.1 failed: Connection refused 

Do I have to use kphone as a client to call the local asterisk server?
How do I do that? Can't I use 'CLI> dial' ?  I was hoping to send a
soundfile. 

Thanks for any clarifications,

-- 
Marco