JANUARY PROGRAM INTRODUCES NEW VIDEOCONFERENCING
On occasion, TAPCUG members attend the TOGGLE meeting for the other PC user group located in Tacoma. At the December meeting I was surprised to see four faces displayed on the projected screen and I asked what that was all about. They said they were using VSEE and that the faces were members in the room with their laptops connected to the wireless tower they had provided for the duration of the meeting. To make it even more surprising, they could've been doing the same thing from home.
I asked about VSEE and learned they had been using this videoconferencing program for about nine months. Being fearless and curious, I proceeded to install VSEE on my primary computer when I return home. I also installed it on my laptop which permits me to talk to myself without having some poor soul on the other end of a telephone line wondering if I can hear them now.
VSEE capabilities went way beyond my expectations and definitely puts Skype into the “old technology” category. Installation on my computers was flawless but some are having problems and I suspect it's because they don't have the FLASH capabilities installed yet. VSEE places an icon on your desktop and all you have to do is click that and it's up and running. Some of the features include: it's free, up to 30 people on your conference call, no handles required because they use your Internet address, too small boxes displayed (one for your picture and one for your address book) and the pictures of everybody online so that your desktop is not cluttered with unnecessary information. The address book includes those people that you have contacted and been accepted by and a green dot tells you if they are online.
I think the greatest feature is the fact that you can share your desktop or selected items on your desktop, over the Internet (wait, there's more) and everyone can use their pen and select a color and write on whatever is displayed on the shared desktop (wait, there's more) and when you finish editing a document or a picture or whatever you were working on as a group, it can be saved and then with drag and drop, placed on the picture of the person(s) in the conference, the icon will show up on their computer, they can drag it off of their picture and save it and they will also have a copy of whatever you were working on. Outrageous!!
My dream (yes, I have a dream) is for everyone in TAPCUG to have this system and to participate in various training, educational or plain gab sessions at designated times during the month. Hopefully, we'll be learning more about the system at our media SIG meetings. Join us for our January meeting and will try and explain VSEE to everyone.
Call me or e-mail if you want to start using VSEE before the January meeting.
Richard Meier
253-584-2207 richardmeier1@comcast.net