Video conferencing and collaboration

[Robborsari]

Hi.  One of the problems I have been trying to solve for my wing is setting up our internet operation so our licensing is within my yearly budget.  ($0.0)  To that end I have been running our web server on seasoned, tested, and experienced hardware (junk) and with opensource and free software. 

One of our members has been using a nearly free service called eluminate.
http://www.elluminate.com/products/index.jsp

I have been looking for a completely free opensource equivelent and I have found dimdim.
http://www.dimdim.com/

I have the opensource version up and running on our Ubuntu linux server and it does work.  Still has some problems with converting powerpoint and PDF files for display but it does allow sharing of those files, many web pages and the computer desktop.  Several video and audio sources as well. 

Has anyone used this or any other solution and what are your experiences?  I am especially interested in solutions that are revenue neutral.  (free) -R-

[KyCAP]

www.freeconference.com

[Eclipse]

SKYPE. Open source is fine, until you try and get the average CAP member who's still using Win98 and IE 4 to use it.   

Be aware that many of the free conference services still incur telephone charges, and if your participants don't manage their telco service actively, this could be a BIG bill for them at the end of the month.  I speak from experience having to pick up some of a phone bill for a cadet this year.

Despite the fact that we live in a world with cheap long distance and unlimited cell phone packages (especially nights and weekends), there are still people who just pick up and dial with no concept of the cost until the end of the month.

Also, most of these services rely heavily on the bandwidth of the moderator, as well as the processing power and bandwidth of all the machines on the call.  Try connecting more than 4-5 people and unless they all have a big pipe and decent machines, you'll start to see performance issues and quality degradation. It should go without saying that the users can't have ten IM sessions running and be downloading a movie while they are on a call.

Again, it amazes me all the members we have, cadets especially, who live online, but ask them to do anything but FaceSpace or Halo and they are lost.

One nice thing about Skype is the Skype-Out / In services where for about $12 a quarter yo can make outbound calls to people who aren't at a computer when your cnf is scheduled.

[EMT-83]

TechSoup offers Citrix GoToWebinar for $94 per year. It's an online web conference tool for up to 1,000 attendees.

It's not free, but it's a professional-grade service for 8 bucks a month.

[Rescue826]

Rob,

I had Dim Dim running for a while on my server.  It worked great!  I had to shut down the server right before Deepwater, But I used it for several of my clients with 90+ attendees.

I had it running on a Godaddy Virtual Private server, it wasn't that bad per month. 

[Robborsari]

Thanks for the comments.  I like dimdim but it seems like they are not keeping up with the opensource version.  It works but there are still issues.  I am currently playing with openmeetings and it looks pretty good so far.

[ElectricPenguin]

Hi.  One of the problems I have been trying to solve for my wing is setting up our internet operation so our licensing is within my yearly budget.  ($0.0)  To that end I have been running our web server on seasoned, tested, and experienced hardware (junk) and with opensource and free software. 

One of our members has been using a nearly free service called eluminate.
http://www.elluminate.com/products/index.jsp

I have been looking for a completely free opensource equivelent and I have found dimdim.
http://www.dimdim.com/

I have the opensource version up and running on our Ubuntu linux server and it does work.  Still has some problems with converting powerpoint and PDF files for display but it does allow sharing of those files, many web pages and the computer desktop.  Several video and audio sources as well. 

Has anyone used this or any other solution and what are your experiences?  I am especially interested in solutions that are revenue neutral.  (free) -R-

I use elluminate for school, its more for school then for anything.

[Eclipse]

Not sure why I didn't say this before - Google Apps for education.

Professional collaboration, email, free calling and conferencing, secure and backed by real SLA's and QOS.

Cost.  Free.

[JoeTomasone]

Not sure why I didn't say this before - Google Apps for education.

Doesn't much help if you're not a school... 

[JeffDG]

Not sure why I didn't say this before - Google Apps for education.

Doesn't much help if you're not a school... 

Yep it does:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/nonprofit/index.html

If you are a U.S. non-profit organization of over 3,000 users, you are now eligible for Google Apps for Business at a 40% discount ($30/user/year). If your organization is under 3,000 users, you qualify for the free version of Education Edition. Learn more

[Eclipse]

^ Yep - any CAP unit, group, or wing can light up an account and provide their members with robust services at no cost (and no ads).
I have a 250 user license for my Group, the process was easy and we've been using it for about 2 years.

[JeffDG]

^ Yep - any CAP unit, group, or wing can light up an account and provide their members with robust services at no cost (and no ads).
I have a 250 user license for my Group, the process was easy and we've been using it for about 2 years.

I think the user count would be well within the size limits (3,000) of most wings.

[Eclipse]

^ Yep - any CAP unit, group, or wing can light up an account and provide their members with robust services at no cost (and no ads).
I have a 250 user license for my Group, the process was easy and we've been using it for about 2 years.

I think the user count would be well within the size limits (3,000) of most wings.

Definitely, especially depending on how you use it.  My intention was / is to provide every member with an email address for official use,
my largest squadron mandates it.  I have about 80 users in my service right now.

Implemented at the unit or Group level there would be no issue with quantity anywhere, and if then used at the wing level just for staff - bingo, done.  Share a doc?  Click.  See it?  Great.

Call you?  Click. Hello.  Free.

This also fixes the "my cadet(s)" aren't allowed to have an email account, etc.

[JoeTomasone]

^ Yep - any CAP unit, group, or wing can light up an account and provide their members with robust services at no cost (and no ads).
I have a 250 user license for my Group, the process was easy and we've been using it for about 2 years.

I think the user count would be well within the size limits (3,000) of most wings.

I stand corrected, but FL is too big.     

Might work for a subset of the Wing, however.

[a2capt]

This also fixes the "my cadet(s)" aren't allowed to have an email account, etc.

In what way? It's still an email account. Did they add features, or you get some filtering right to make that work?

[LTC Don]

Depending on the available infrastructure and expertise for setting them up, there are two online conferencing products available:

Big Blue Button http://www.bigbluebutton.org/
and



Openmeetings http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/


Both have online evaluation options.

BBB is the more polished interface, but openmeetings looks pretty good as well.


Cheers,

[Spaceman3750]

BigBlueButton looks pretty cool, and from what I'm gathering from a conversation in the demo, runs nicely on Slicehost. I think I might set up a VPS to play with it on. If I do, I'll be sure to invite some CAPTalkers on to play too!

[Eclipse]

This also fixes the "my cadet(s)" aren't allowed to have an email account, etc.

In what way? It's still an email account. Did they add features, or you get some filtering right to make that work?

A unit CC can create secure email accounts strictly for the purpose of accessing eServices for those cadets (and even some Seniors) who have issues doing it themselves.

[JeffDG]

BigBlueButton looks pretty cool, and from what I'm gathering from a conversation in the demo, runs nicely on Slicehost. I think I might set up a VPS to play with it on. If I do, I'll be sure to invite some CAPTalkers on to play too!

I like the fact that BBB on their home page shows a demonstration of an ILS approach!

[Spaceman3750]

BigBlueButton looks pretty cool, and from what I'm gathering from a conversation in the demo, runs nicely on Slicehost. I think I might set up a VPS to play with it on. If I do, I'll be sure to invite some CAPTalkers on to play too!

OK, so Big Blue Button is really, really, really cool. I set it up in an Ubuntu Server 10.04 virtual machine on my desktop computer, and as someone with only a small amount of Linux experience, it was dead-simple to set up. There's some really cool features such as webcam, voice, call-in with FreeSWITCH or Asterisk (I haven't gotten into this as I don't have the phone infrastructure to support it), breakout sessions (you have to enable it in the config though), desktop sharing, whiteboard, etc. A tech-savvy member could run small meetings on this platform from their home computer very easily if they have a decent internet connection. For larger meetings or if you don't have anyone meeting the bandwidth requirements you could get a Linode or Slicehost VPS, or you could try Amazon EC2, which is priced by the hour so you aren't paying monthly for a server you're only using 2 hours a month.