Shift8 Creative Graphic Design and Website Development

Geek conferences.  Well, perhaps "trendy" conferences that all us web developers are always wanting to go to. Or...Meetups...But darn, that meetup and that conference they are half way across the country. It costs so much money and takes so much time. If you're lucky your boss might pay for you to go (as well they should for the value!). Though, probably that won't happen so you miss out. 

Well, that's where I believe in recording and slideshare, etc. However...That's only so useful. This is 2011 God damnit, where's my hover car and sexy computer lady voice that I can talk to when I'm lonely?! Ah, the Ballmer peak got to the best of us...Or maybe not. We actually do have many great examples of technology. We finally have tablets (again), but now that hardware is better they are actually somewhat cool. We have a lot of good web software too and don't forget the cloud. The problem is, you have to hunt for some of this awesome tech...And so, I've found something very noteworthy.

OpenMeetings.de is a great site (and open source project) that uses red5 to provide online meetings and presentations. Ok, yea there's AdobeConnect and Webex and all those other guys...However, they don't have quite as many features and they mostly all require some special software to download and have some problems. Typically most of those services run better on Windows as well. However, the most problematic thing is they all cost money. Lots of money. It's hard for open source communities that have little or no funding to afford these services so...They don't. You end up with conferences that try to get sponsors to cover the costs and you end up with wikis and slideshare and IRC chat rooms. Don't get me wrong, all that is still needed...But I think we should have somewhere to turn for virtual meetups.

OpenMeetings doesn't give you live screen sharing like most other services (and before I forget, join.me is another great mention). The screen sharing is actually a series of screenshots updated fairly frequently. Certainly frequently enough to show a presentation. Almost enough to show live typing, but I think that's enough for the needs of a meeting. Furthermore, you can actually record the whole event to later download as an AVI or FLV! In addition to this very elusive feature (RDP and RFB have been around for ages, yet it's still hard to find good free solutions apparently), it also provides video and audio communication via your web cam and microphone. It also provides text chat and a whiteboard. You can give control to other users and allow them to share their screens and video/audio as well.

It certainly appears to have all the features that one could need. It also has a few other goodies like polls but the most important feature, aside from the sharing parts, I think is the fact that you can plan meetings on a calendar and then invite people. However, how easy is it to use? How well does it work? From what I tested, it's very compatible and pretty easy to use. In fact, it's so compatible that it also worked on my Android 2.3 tablet! You obviously couldn't share your tablet's screen and it didn't recognize the webcam on my tablet, but it definitely worked as a viewer. The resolution being a bit lower than an actual computer made it a little hard to read text but you could see the shared screen and whiteboard. Further, you could actually interact with the whiteboard. Drawing on that with your finger was definitely fun. The speed was fair, again I don't think the whiteboard is 100% real time, especially due to how it renders when you first load it (it seems to replay all the actions). However, it works. Virtual meetings, virtual classrooms, here we come!

Note: Oh, and if anyone from 10gen is seeing this, YES that is a MongoDB mug in the background, I went to an actual conference to get to have it only break on me day one as I cleaned it...I can still use it, as long as I don't pick it up by the handle. You still owe me a mug, especially for entering that contest last month! It was a lot of typing...What does a guy have to do to get a mug? I've even now made a product/brand placement for ya.