Hi Rick,
I can't say about what else is available. TeamTalk was very easy to setup
and of course was free. It's very friendly to allowing any number of people
to just "drop-in" and participate (either with or without a password).
Skype was suggested to me, but it's group call functionality evidently
requires someone to make an outgoing call to each person who may participate
(no uninvited "drop-ins"). I don't know about its file sharing etc, and I
don't know how things are today.
The short-coming for TeamTalk is that it requires a server. When I was
using it, the author of TeamTalk had made a server freely available to
everyone; if he had not done that, you would be required to run the TeamTalk
server software on a pc with a decent upstream bit rate (it doesn't have to
be running Windows server software or anything special like that, it's just
that you'll have to have the bitrate, and you may have to make router
adjustments, and run the server package yourself). I don't think TeamTalk
allows for taking over another pc, or one pc showing its screen to others.
You might be able to use TeamTalk for your conferencing, and then use the
remote desktop and remote help features of Windows, case-by-case, to handle
this need.
Otherwise, perhaps something like "go to meeting" is more like what you
need? I don't think it's accessible though.
FYI, There is a version of TeamTalk which allows for video conferencing I
believe; it may not be free, but may include screen sharing/viewing
features.
One last tip for TeamTalk: if you decide to use it, you can create a file
with all your info about which server and "channel" for everyone to use,
including the password, and you can send this .tt file to the people you
wish to possibly attend. Once they've installed TeamTalk, they can just
click on this file in Windows and it will take them to the conference,
specifying all the info needed for TeamTalk. It's very convenient, and
keeps you from having to publicisize the password).
TeamTalk does allow for voice activated or push-to-talk operation of the
mike; I'd really recommend you instruct everyone to use the push-to-talk
option to keep down the unintended background noise which can otherwise make
the conference very hard to hear at times. I'd also recommend setting the
sound parameters for your channel to mono and as low as you can tolerate.
Some of the really nice options only work well if everyone has a very high
band width (there's one for instance which randomly positions each person's
voice in a kind of "audible landscape", using stereo effects to give you a
feel for a room full of people speaking all around you).
Hth,
Chip
From: RicksPlace [mailto:ofbgm...@mi.rr.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 3:30 AM
To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com
Subject: Chips Classes and the TeamTalk Software Question
Hi Chip et al:
I am putting together a programming team and need some way for remote
programmers to hold meetings something like Chip did for his classes.
I am wondering about how hard it was to set up TeamTalk initially,
formatting, settings ect...for the classes and
if there is other software out there anyone has used to hold Team Meetings
with more features.
Things I can think of that would make meetings productive:
Interactive audio via microphones;
Ability to either upload and download code snippets and, or, files;
Ability to perhaps take over each others machines or have shared folders and
files - some way to help each other;
Whatever else you may have used at Team Meetings to make meetings more
productive.
Thanks:
Rick USA
