Talk It Up!

Trying DimDim: an open-source webinar solution

When the client asked me to seek out open source webinar platforms last week, I was skeptical. Open-source is part of the foundation's mission and philosophy (and mine, too, for that matter), but I had my doubts as to how well an open source webinar platform would actually work.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the meeting software that I'd used just a week before for a national leadership summit was in fact DimDim, an open source meeting and software solution. After digging around for a bit, playing with the demos and in general making a pest of myself to the DimDim staff, here's my initial evaluation (and Heather Ross, my buddy and instructional design expert, this is the answer to your question of how exactly DimDim is different):

DimDim is a free web conferencing service where you can share your desktop, show slides, collaborate, chat, talk and broadcast via webcam with absolutely no download required to host or attend meetings. There are a few versions: open source, professional and enterprise editions. The free version allows up to 20 participants in a meeting; more than that, and you'll need to upgrade to Pro for up to 100 participants.

Features:

• Software runs off a web browser; nothing is downloaded to your or participants' computers
• Up to two live video/webcam feeds per meeting--so you can host via your webcam and have one additional guest video presenter at a time
• You can share the standard presentations (PowerPoint slides, e.g.), but you can also share live websites and your own desktop live as well
• Shared whiteboards that host and participants can collaborate on and annotate
• Up to four participants at a time can be given audio access through VOIP/computer mic (not through a regular telephone line, although that might be coming)
• Text chat for all participants to chat with each other and the presenter

My evaluation:

When this software was being used live, we did lose audio about every hour or two (this was for all all-day conference), but we did get those participants back quickly. The participants were able to see all the slides that the live attendees saw, and they heard the audio just fine as well. When I did a video demo, there was a bit of latency, but that is undoubtedly because I was logged on using wifi and not hardwired. If all video hosts have hardwired connections, I suspect the latency would be minimal (and Kevin at DimDim confirmed this--thank you!).

So far, my experience with DimDim has been fairly positive. What about you? Has anyone else tried this?

Live from MacWorld Expo, Friday

A few final commentaries on the show. My additional pick for cool product--OmniFocus, personal task management system based on David Allen's Getting Things Done, both for the Mac and the iPhone app (full disclosure: they are my client for the show, much to my Geek Girl delight).

Also, best booth ideas: Google's installing an iPhone charging station guaranteed a captive audience. Brilliant!

Links over coffee: for mad scientists

Links over coffee for Monday, August 11th: all geeks, all the time!

• Slashdot reports that some scientists are close to creating an invisibility cloak. The comments section rails full of references to geeky scientists sneaking into girls' locker rooms. I don't write the news, folks; I just report it.

• Audiko has created free ring tones from Joss Whedon's blog sensation, Dr. Horrible, including Neil Patrick Harris' opening mad scientist evil mouahahaha laugh. Know a biologist? I do, and this is now his ringtone.

• Make reports on Seed magazine creating downloadable seed crib sheets about synthetic biology. Mad (yet lazy) bioscientists, take note.

Links over coffee: for font snobs

Links over coffee--what caffeinated me today?

• Thanks to Luke Armour for discovering this YouTube gem. If you've ever turned up your nose at Ariel or debated the virtues of serif versus sans serif fonts, you'll laugh yourself silly at this video. I follow Luke and cite my favorite quotes: "Get with the Times, New Roman," "Time is up, fonts! Now, which one of you do we make sans serif?" "Airplane eightball yingyang glasses"

• Sarah Perez in ReadWriteWeb quotes a new study claiming that half of US adults use social media. The other half use typewriters and brick cell phones without texting capabilities, apparently.
• Howard Rheingold comes up against the Twitter-skeptical with his method for getting the most out of Twitter and preventing it from being a time-waster

The Knight News Challenge opens its new Garage

As some of you may have gathered from my recent Tweets, I've been working with the Knight News Challenge team with this year's Knight News Challenge. Our goal? To help improve the range, quality and diversity of this year's applicants for the 2008-09 News Challenge (which will give away roughly $5MM to support open source projects that move forward local discourse and sharing/discussion around news, community, social media, visualization.) If you want to find out more, take a look at last year's winners and their great (and now, well-funded) ideas and innovations.

This year, we've added something new to the Challenge: the Garage, a community where current and potential applications for funding can enter their ideas, share comments and peer review, and request mentor support to improve their application before they submit it. If you have an idea but aren't sure how to flesh it out, the Garage can help incubate it so you can put forth the best application possible.

To find out more, our Online Community Manager, Kristen Taylor, explains:

The Garage is open as of today; the KNC08 will start taking applications as of September 2nd, closing on November 1st. If you are a news addict, a citizen journalist, a social media person, an open source developer with a yen for social justice or even a previous applicant, come and check it out and look around!

To participate, join the FriendFeed room and follow us on Twitter.

Links over coffee

Links over coffee, Wednesday, August 6th:

I've got my latte and thousands of feeds in my Google Reader. What jumped out at me today?

• Dustin of the Lifehacks blog reminds us to to a weekly big-picture review to make sure our daily tasks are aligning with our core values and needs. This is a great idea for those of us who spend too much time putting out fires and not enough forwarding our client relationship.
• Alastair Kroll of GigaOm reminds us that while technology changes and upgrades, the evil that is 15-year-old girls never does. Have Hanna Montana give your friend a wake-up call at 2:00 a.m.
• Dan Frommer in Silicon Valley Insider reports on the one iPhone app I'm guaranteed NOT to buy: "I am Rich," at $999.99, gives you... zero functions.

Cuil vs Google

Today, I'm trying out Cuil.com, the new search competitor to Google, claiming to search over 120 billion web pages. Michael Arrington reports in TechCrunch:

Cuil also claims to have better search results than Google and others based on how they index websites. They do not simply catalog keywords on a site and then rank the site based on its importance. They also work to understand how words are related (France - cheese - wine, for example), to return more relevant results to users.

So I did a quick vanity search to see what came up. As with Google, my podcast and blog sites did come up first, but with odd photos of random strangers attached:

I'm just really wondering who that old guy listening to my podcast is. And who's the blond setting the table next to my website? The Jaiku photo almost looks like me, but it's not.

Was it just me? I did a search for the internet-famous Shel Holtz, out of curiosity, and got better results:

His handsome visage is connected to every one of his sites. So perhaps it's just the plethora of "Heidi Miller"s that gave the wonky photo results on Cuil. And just because I've been trying out 12Seconds.TV:

Trying out cuil.com on 12seconds.tv

Heidi in Second Life

OK, well, I did it. My new iMac arrived this weekend, and once we got everything hooked up and I stopped ooohing and aaaahing over just how big the screen is and just how bright and sharp everything looks on it, I created an avatar and wandered around Second Life.

My avatar? Maia Sucettes. I'm the one in the middle wearing jeans and a sweater.

So far, I've managed to drop a beach ball onto a table, bump my head a lot, whoosh/teleport to Podcast Island, fly around a bit, and generally be rather confused. I met the Island Manager, who was incredibly helpful and drove me in his car to go skydiving. Kinda fun! I didn't quite have the coordinates to visit Lee Hopkins' space, so I just wandered around and tried not to hit my head.

My preliminary comments:

• Creating the avatar is fun. If you've played before, you probably know this. I haven't, so I didn't.
• Moving around, flying, picking up objects and keeping an inventory were pretty easy and intuitive.
• Finding one's way around the map is nearly impossible. I just chose random locations and teleported there until I found something interesting.
• There is a surprising lack of cellulite on avatars.
• My avatar is wearing more clothing than anyone else I've met!
• While I enjoyed wandering, a pre-arranged meetup would probably be much more productive.
• Flying is very handy, and I want it in real life.

Logitech advice

OK, I'm stumped! Two weeks ago, my old Logitech headset bit the dust; the sound no longer transmitted through the headphones. So I went out to get a new one. Radio Shack didn't carry them, so I went to Circuit City. The Skype-approved Logitech 350 set was $55, a bit more than the $30 I'd paid for the original headset a year before. Thinking it was the store's markup, I headed for Best Buy instead. Same thing. Hmm. Back to Circuit City, where I chose a Plantronics headset.

Uh-oh. That's what I get for not going with the brand I know and trust! Turns out it wasn't a USB headset, and my Mac doesn't have a mic input. Back to the store to return the headset. Then to Best Buy to check out their selection. I select the Logitech Skype-approved headset, checking to make sure it's USB first.

When I get home, I discover that while the mic registers my voice, no sound comes through the headset. I check that the device is selected in System Preferences and in Audio HiJack Pro. Nothing. I even read the manual! The only advice is to make sure the device is selected in System Preferences, which I do again. Hmm. I restart and switch USB ports. Nothing. So I call tech support, and they inform me that the headset must be defective--why not take it back to Best Buy and ask the Geek Squad to test it on another computer?

Two days later, I head back to Best Buy and wait in line for a geek. Nope; they can't hear sound through it, either. Aha! So I exchange the headset for another one. Before leaving, I open the package and plug it into my laptop, which I've brought with me. Nothing. I ask the geeks to see if sound will transmit through their systems--and it does! A bad USB port, maybe? But then why would everything else, including the headset mic, work but not the headphones?

The geek suggests I try Google to see if anyone else has run across the problem. So today I did that. Didn't find anything with my specific issue, but one user did say that she had to click "mute" and "unmute" a few times in System Prefs to get the headset mic to work.

Aha! Suddenly I could hear my iTunes music! Problem solved, yes?

NO! when I tried to use the headset for recording in Audio HiJack Pro, all I hear through the headphones is a deafeningly loud, high-pitched feedback squeal. Restarting, changing USB drives, and adjusting the volume and gain make no difference at all. Muting the mic makes no difference.

Any ideas on how to get the new headset to work like the old one? I use AHP to record my Skype calls, and as a podcaster, I'm at a serious disadvantage without it!