[BLU/Officers] Online meetings

[Bill Ricker]

*Adding Tom Metro* to CC: list since he has experience and opinions in
remote meeting tech.

I've seen a number of new-to-work-from-home and new-to-teaching-online
posts on twitter this week.

Two threads (of many) by old hands at remote-meeting/teaching that have
useful info

*Options* (addressed to non-tech, but really is addressing anyone new to
WFH)
  https://twitter.com/GlennF/status/1238690177435852803?s=09

*Hints for Zoom instructor*, half will apply to all platforms and many to
non-academic semi-lecture meeting like ours
   https://twitter.com/SamWangPhD/status/1238838659949961216?s=19


My own *comments* on platforms -

   - *Screenleap* has 45 minutes (iirc) on free account and
   only-presenter-pays options also.
   Desktop clients for win, mac, Android, iOS.
   Iirc one of chrome or firefox would let me share a window on linux; the
   other would only let me share a tab.
   (*This may have changed with new FireFox security which is more flexible
   and explicit this year*. *We haven't used this one as much lately so not
   really current on it*. *When last used, it had some difficulty switching
   presenters but we eventually got used to how to do it without restarting
   meetings*.)

   - *Slack* has screenshare/meetings too. *I think i used it once or
   twice, don't remember details.*

   - *Google Meet*: Works well with our remote client and their remote team.
   Oddly Android client is least featureful, can't feed a screenshare; I
   suspect because Android has better program separation but might be less
   multiprocessing? (Android can watch screenshare. )
   Includes a phone bridge dial-in for folks who want audio via phone
   instead of tablet/laptop for whatever reason, or only want audio.
   Larger Meetings can be set to automute. Individuals can unmute/mute
   selves; and toggle their video camera.
   Will work with camera off.
   With Latest FireFox, the user must grant camera, mic, screenshare privs
   to in-tab applet, and FF keeps a visible warning that one is sharing, very
   nice. (*And will work if you deny camera, which i do.*)
   I haven't tried with Chrome but i think Tom did. We recently shared both
   Terminal window and a Google Docs tab alternately, switching presenters.

Smaller replies interleaved below  ...

On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 9:47 AM Jerry Feldman <gaf.linux at gmail.com> wrote:

> Some of our speakers may have access to a video conferencing system. We
> certainly could have the speaker give his/her talk via YouTube. But, our
> next speaker is Federico who has access to BlueJeans
> <https://www.bluejeans.com/>.
>

Perfectly reasonable to let the speaker present with their preferred brand.
(Whether we can or should capture a BlueJeans presentation on our YouTube
channel is a separate question.)

In the future, we can explore ways to be able to conduct online meetings
> where the audience will be able to interact with the speaker.
>

Having an IRC-like back channel, either in the presentation app or on a
second screen (tablet) can work.
Some of the apps allow participants to unmute themselves and butt right in,
others have RAISE HAND button and chat channel.

> We would need to secure a location with a high enough bandwidth for the
> speaker,
>

Staples Brighton has a WeWork or equivalent meeting space in the back, but
if they have any sense they've shut that down for the duration.

> or the speaker could present from his/her home or work.
>
During this time of sanitary isolation that's probably ideal.


> We would probably need to buy a license that would allow our members to
> connect. (Possibly Boston User Groups could use its funds to acquire a
> license). For us, we must be able to use Linux. I'm sure most support
> Android.
>

True Linux Desktop clients are few and far between (due to the infinitude
of testing space) but ability to work from the browser on Linux is more
common; some Electron "It's not a browser" apps exist (e.g. Slack).

As noted in my comments above, at least Google Meet native Android App can
not drive a screen share - which is likely an OS restriction so i suspect
may be across the board.

Zoom is $14.99/Mo
>
This seems to be the popular choice for Universities going On Line.
Per Glenn's comments, they've fixed their egregious security botch.


> SamePage has a free option. Prices start at $7.50/User
> RingCentral $14.99/Mo
> jitsi https://jitsi.org/ Free/Open source. We may be able to use this.
> Source is on github.
>


> Google Hangouts Meet
>
I like, am using at least weekly with client currently.


> Talky (https://talky.io/) built on jitsi
>

> Let's take a look at the above list and add or subtract.
>

See my list and resources above.

> I would like to be able to test 1 or more of these online within a few
> days among us. I would prefer all of John, Me, Kurt, Bill, and Dave. I
> think John is the key here since he does not really have home internet.
>

If John doesn't have home broadband, how would he consume a streaming video
meeting from home?
4G tablet OTA?
I don't expect anything beyond text chat and audio will work well over
dialup, iffy on ADSL  !
Self-isolation w/o broadband is not going to be pleasant!
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