Re: Cross-platform virtual meetings
I installed and tested out Google Openmeetings today. It does work, but not near as slick as other browser based collaboration tools like WebEx, MeetingPlace, etc. But those other ones are not free either :) It feels very beta-ish, and some of the UI is a bit confusing. One of my testers immediately noticed that it has issues with .docx files (when you upload files it basically uses OpenOffice on the backend to open and convert the docs). Could still get around this by using the desktop sharing, or just not using darn .docx files :) I do like how participants can download the files in their native format or download a PDF version. The audio quality was excellent, and video quality was okay, except the desktop sharing, which basically just takes a snapshot every 2 seconds, so no fluid refresh like you would be expecting. I may do some more testing to see how much bandwidth it uses when there are say 4 people in a conference. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Cross-platform virtual meetings
This works on macs, windows and linux: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/ but not entirely sure if it is everything you are looking for. There is also a pro version which may offer more features that would be useful. On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: My company is in the process of trying to set up virtual meetings, including things like screencasting/sharing, voice, video, whiteboard, etc. The office is all Mac, our clients are mostly Windows, and I'm on Linux. We've been trying to find something that will work for everyone and is easy to use, but so far haven't come up with much. Webex seems to work, but I can't get screen or document sharing to work from Linux, and it also lacks voice. Most of the others either didn't run at all or don't have any Linux client. Recently I set up a VNC server on my machine and used our VPN to broadcast back to the office and Skype to handle the audio. It worked, but not well, and it's definitely not something that we can use with our clients. So, fellow Linux users, got any other suggestions for what I should be using? I'd settle for something that didn't have voice if everything else worked really well, but of course, I'd like to have everything in one package. -Joe --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Cross-platform virtual meetings
Thanks for that, I had no idea Adobe had anything like this. The only downfall is it's limited to 15 participants at a time. Their Connect Pro solution might work though, I don't see anything about a participant limit. They don't have pricing for that online though, which leads me to believe it's pretty expensive. Still, thanks, we'll check that out! -Joe Judd Pickell wrote: This works on macs, windows and linux: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/ but not entirely sure if it is everything you are looking for. There is also a pro version which may offer more features that would be useful. On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: My company is in the process of trying to set up virtual meetings, including things like screencasting/sharing, voice, video, whiteboard, etc. The office is all Mac, our clients are mostly Windows, and I'm on Linux. We've been trying to find something that will work for everyone and is easy to use, but so far haven't come up with much. Webex seems to work, but I can't get screen or document sharing to work from Linux, and it also lacks voice. Most of the others either didn't run at all or don't have any Linux client. Recently I set up a VNC server on my machine and used our VPN to broadcast back to the office and Skype to handle the audio. It worked, but not well, and it's definitely not something that we can use with our clients. So, fellow Linux users, got any other suggestions for what I should be using? I'd settle for something that didn't have voice if everything else worked really well, but of course, I'd like to have everything in one package. -Joe --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Cross-platform virtual meetings
On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Judd Pickell pick...@gmail.com wrote: This works on macs, windows and linux: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/ but not entirely sure if it is everything you are looking for. There is also a pro version which may offer more features that would be useful. Joe - Adobe's product has never worked for me - Fedora 10 you might look at http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/ you might also look into a XMPP solution like http://coccinella.im/ Ed On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: My company is in the process of trying to set up virtual meetings, including things like screencasting/sharing, voice, video, whiteboard, etc. The office is all Mac, our clients are mostly Windows, and I'm on Linux. We've been trying to find something that will work for everyone and is easy to use, but so far haven't come up with much. Webex seems to work, but I can't get screen or document sharing to work from Linux, and it also lacks voice. Most of the others either didn't run at all or don't have any Linux client. Recently I set up a VNC server on my machine and used our VPN to broadcast back to the office and Skype to handle the audio. It worked, but not well, and it's definitely not something that we can use with our clients. So, fellow Linux users, got any other suggestions for what I should be using? I'd settle for something that didn't have voice if everything else worked really well, but of course, I'd like to have everything in one package. -Joe --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Cross-platform virtual meetings
On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: Thanks for that, I had no idea Adobe had anything like this. The only downfall is it's limited to 15 participants at a time. Their Connect Pro solution might work though, I don't see anything about a participant limit. They don't have pricing for that online though, which leads me to believe it's pretty expensive. Still, thanks, we'll check that out! -Joe Joe - If you get more than a few folks into a meeting you want broadcast not conference ware - icecast will broadcast audio video, good for a group that doesnt need to interact in channel. Pair icecast with an Asterisk VoIP conference for audio feeedback and you should be able to handle a good size group. Ed Judd Pickell wrote: This works on macs, windows and linux: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/ but not entirely sure if it is everything you are looking for. There is also a pro version which may offer more features that would be useful. On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: My company is in the process of trying to set up virtual meetings, including things like screencasting/sharing, voice, video, whiteboard, etc. The office is all Mac, our clients are mostly Windows, and I'm on Linux. We've been trying to find something that will work for everyone and is easy to use, but so far haven't come up with much. Webex seems to work, but I can't get screen or document sharing to work from Linux, and it also lacks voice. Most of the others either didn't run at all or don't have any Linux client. Recently I set up a VNC server on my machine and used our VPN to broadcast back to the office and Skype to handle the audio. It worked, but not well, and it's definitely not something that we can use with our clients. So, fellow Linux users, got any other suggestions for what I should be using? I'd settle for something that didn't have voice if everything else worked really well, but of course, I'd like to have everything in one package. -Joe --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Cross-platform virtual meetings
Some things that I have tried that work cross platform, mostly because they run in a browser: ustream - http://www.ustream.tv - works well for one-to-many broadcasting mebeam - http://www.mebeam.com - multipoint conferencing stickam - http://www.stickam.com - multipoint conferencing Ed wrote: On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: Thanks for that, I had no idea Adobe had anything like this. The only downfall is it's limited to 15 participants at a time. Their Connect Pro solution might work though, I don't see anything about a participant limit. They don't have pricing for that online though, which leads me to believe it's pretty expensive. Still, thanks, we'll check that out! -Joe Joe - If you get more than a few folks into a meeting you want broadcast not conference ware - icecast will broadcast audio video, good for a group that doesnt need to interact in channel. Pair icecast with an Asterisk VoIP conference for audio feeedback and you should be able to handle a good size group. Ed Judd Pickell wrote: This works on macs, windows and linux: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/ but not entirely sure if it is everything you are looking for. There is also a pro version which may offer more features that would be useful. On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: My company is in the process of trying to set up virtual meetings, including things like screencasting/sharing, voice, video, whiteboard, etc. The office is all Mac, our clients are mostly Windows, and I'm on Linux. We've been trying to find something that will work for everyone and is easy to use, but so far haven't come up with much. Webex seems to work, but I can't get screen or document sharing to work from Linux, and it also lacks voice. Most of the others either didn't run at all or don't have any Linux client. Recently I set up a VNC server on my machine and used our VPN to broadcast back to the office and Skype to handle the audio. It worked, but not well, and it's definitely not something that we can use with our clients. So, fellow Linux users, got any other suggestions for what I should be using? I'd settle for something that didn't have voice if everything else worked really well, but of course, I'd like to have everything in one package. -Joe --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Cross-platform virtual meetings
Excerpts from plug's message of Mon Mar 23 12:11:11 -0700 2009: On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Judd Pickell pick...@gmail.com wrote: This works on macs, windows and linux: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/ but not entirely sure if it is everything you are looking for. There is also a pro version which may offer more features that would be useful. Joe - Adobe's product has never worked for me - Fedora 10 you might look at http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/ you might also look into a XMPP solution like http://coccinella.im/ Ed I've used Coccinella before, it's really nice. Written in TCL/Tk, and it can work with pretty much any jabber server (except Google Talk for some reason, when you try to use VoIP). It worked fine on Linux and Mac OS X for me. Whiteboard is shockingly instant in all of my trials. I'm currently trying to get my school to switch to that from Elluminate. Oh, Elluminate. It's quite possibly the WORST software I have ever used, next to some of the things Adobe has put forth. But, the client does run on Windows, Mac, and Linux, although I've never got sound to work reliably on Linux. The tech support won't help you much either. They say that they will only support Red Hat and SuSE. I guess that's not a problem if you are familiar enough with Red Hat or SuSE and can translate their instructions into $YOURDISTRO lingo. I'll include their link just to be fair. (If you're interested, I wrote an AppleScript that can go to any room it pleases ;) http://coccinella.im/ -- Try that! http://elluminate.com/ -- Shun! --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Cross-platform virtual meetings
Adobe's Connect Pro is CRAZY expensive, so we're not likely to use it. Using icecast is an interesting idea. I wasn't aware that icecast handled video, it's been a while since I've played with it. I'm not sure how easy it would be for our marketing dept. to set up though. Coccinella looks pretty cool, but we need something that does more than a whiteboard. The idea was to use this both for internal conferences (they're in Chicago, so I need an easy way to demo things with them) and for external sales efforts (seminars and presentations to clients around the world). Openmeetings looks like it has both voice and screencast modules. The only downfall being that the client has to install the application, but it may not be that big of a deal. Thanks for the feedback. Openmeetings looks really cool, assuming it works well. -Joe Ed wrote: On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: Thanks for that, I had no idea Adobe had anything like this. The only downfall is it's limited to 15 participants at a time. Their Connect Pro solution might work though, I don't see anything about a participant limit. They don't have pricing for that online though, which leads me to believe it's pretty expensive. Still, thanks, we'll check that out! -Joe Joe - If you get more than a few folks into a meeting you want broadcast not conference ware - icecast will broadcast audio video, good for a group that doesnt need to interact in channel. Pair icecast with an Asterisk VoIP conference for audio feeedback and you should be able to handle a good size group. Ed Judd Pickell wrote: This works on macs, windows and linux: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/ but not entirely sure if it is everything you are looking for. There is also a pro version which may offer more features that would be useful. On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Joe li...@joefleming.net wrote: My company is in the process of trying to set up virtual meetings, including things like screencasting/sharing, voice, video, whiteboard, etc. The office is all Mac, our clients are mostly Windows, and I'm on Linux. We've been trying to find something that will work for everyone and is easy to use, but so far haven't come up with much. Webex seems to work, but I can't get screen or document sharing to work from Linux, and it also lacks voice. Most of the others either didn't run at all or don't have any Linux client. Recently I set up a VNC server on my machine and used our VPN to broadcast back to the office and Skype to handle the audio. It worked, but not well, and it's definitely not something that we can use with our clients. So, fellow Linux users, got any other suggestions for what I should be using? I'd settle for something that didn't have voice if everything else worked really well, but of course, I'd like to have everything in one package. -Joe --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
RE: Cross-platform virtual meetings
I have loved this thread so far! What I can tell you we did was Skype: Voice/Chat/Video Yugma: Presentation/Desktop Sharing/PSTN Voice Conferencing The down side to Skype is that only two people can video conference and for voice only I have found my clients are more comfortable with the old fashioned dial in voice conference call provided with Yugma. Yugma on the other had was great for presenting and collaboration. With the ability to pass control around or even switch presenters mid session so any one who wants can show their screen and present their ideas and invite others to take control for tweaking I have never found a better solution for online meetings. Plus the price can not be beet. Free for the basic edition and something like $15 a month for the pro version. Check it out at www.yugma.com you get the pro version free for 30 days. After that your on the basic plan until you pay so there is no risk. -Original Message- From: plug-discuss-boun...@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-boun...@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Joe Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 11:06 AM To: Main PLUG discussion list Subject: Cross-platform virtual meetings My company is in the process of trying to set up virtual meetings, including things like screencasting/sharing, voice, video, whiteboard, etc. The office is all Mac, our clients are mostly Windows, and I'm on Linux. We've been trying to find something that will work for everyone and is easy to use, but so far haven't come up with much. Webex seems to work, but I can't get screen or document sharing to work from Linux, and it also lacks voice. Most of the others either didn't run at all or don't have any Linux client. Recently I set up a VNC server on my machine and used our VPN to broadcast back to the office and Skype to handle the audio. It worked, but not well, and it's definitely not something that we can use with our clients. So, fellow Linux users, got any other suggestions for what I should be using? I'd settle for something that didn't have voice if everything else worked really well, but of course, I'd like to have everything in one package. -Joe --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
