Hi everyone Our last meeting moved to virtual Google Hangout on short notice, which probably explained the low turnout. My question is, whether speakers and attendees would be willing to move to virtual ones, to keep our little community together and going? The last meeting was done with Google Hangouts, as it allows sharing the screen as well. Doesn't have to be Hangouts, it was simply convenient as a lot of people have gmail accounts. Open to viable alternatives. Stay safe! Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
Hi, I'm somewhat new to using the google "hangouts" video conferencing. I've only attended three of these conferences. They are good, but I'm still getting things fathomed. The video breaking up or being delayed doesn't really matter, but I found the poor audio at times was rather annoying. During the last conference I monitored my laptop and found both cores were sitting at 100% busy. Admittedly its only a 1.86GHz dual core. Thus this is probably why the audio was breaking up. Fortunately, with 8GB of RAM, I didn't run out and start swapping as I'm sure that would have sunk me. I suspect that I already had too many applications open on my laptop that were consuming CPU and RAM resources before I commenced the video conferencing. i.e. I had over 100 Mozilla Firefox tabs open. Before the next video conference that I join I intend to reboot my computer and only have one Mozilla firefox window with just the google hangouts tab open and see if the audio improves. So I'm all for having a virtual meeting with google hangouts. Maybe we need to allow 10 minutes at the beginning for people to join, test their microphones, work out how to mute their mic and turn their camera on/off, monitor their system performance, give the dog a bone to chew so its not barking in the background, etc. cheers, Ian.
Thanks Peter for arranging the virtual meeting. I think getting 4 attendees can be regarded as a success considering everything else going on. Yes, I am all for virtual meetings. I can't getthe microphone to work on my desktop which is very frustrating, but it works fine on my laptop I have used Zoom for other meetings which also works OK. For both you have to kiss your privacy goodby, but Googgle knows all about most of us already, and we haven't anything to hide, so I don't suppose we are giving up much new. I like Ian's idea of having a warmup period. Can anybody find an Open Source solution? I wish everybody well. We are probably better opsitioned than most to have lots of interesting things to learn and enjoy during an enforced holiday. Rod On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 at 19:17, Ian Stewart <ianstewart56(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
I'm somewhat new to using the google "hangouts" video conferencing. I've only attended three of these conferences. They are good, but I'm still getting things fathomed.
The video breaking up or being delayed doesn't really matter, but I found the poor audio at times was rather annoying. During the last conference I monitored my laptop and found both cores were sitting at 100% busy. Admittedly its only a 1.86GHz dual core. Thus this is probably why the audio was breaking up. Fortunately, with 8GB of RAM, I didn't run out and start swapping as I'm sure that would have sunk me.
I suspect that I already had too many applications open on my laptop that were consuming CPU and RAM resources before I commenced the video conferencing. i.e. I had over 100 Mozilla Firefox tabs open. Before the next video conference that I join I intend to reboot my computer and only have one Mozilla firefox window with just the google hangouts tab open and see if the audio improves.
So I'm all for having a virtual meeting with google hangouts. Maybe we need to allow 10 minutes at the beginning for people to join, test their microphones, work out how to mute their mic and turn their camera on/off, monitor their system performance, give the dog a bone to chew so its not barking in the background, etc.
cheers, Ian.
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Thanks Peter for arranging the virtual meeting. I think getting 4 attendees can be regarded as a success considering everything else going on. Yes, I am all for virtual meetings. I can't getthe microphone to work on my desktop which is very frustrating, but it works fine on my laptop I have used Zoom for other meetings which also works OK. For both you have to kiss your privacy goodby, but Googgle knows all about most of us already, and we haven't anything to hide, so I don't suppose we are giving up much new. I like Ian's idea of having a warmup period. Can anybody find an Open Source solution?
I wish everybody well. We are probably better opsitioned than most to have lots of interesting things to learn and enjoy during an enforced holiday.
The NZ Open Source Society runs their own instance of BigBlueButton (BBB), an open source web conferencing server: https://nzoss.nz/covid-19-response-help-those-working-home We could get in touch with them to create our own "room". I doubt that our little VPS that's running our WLUG website would handle an instance of BBB. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
Just to add another two cents to add to the virtual meetings topic. I suggest that if you will be using a laptop, then don't use the speaker and microphone in the laptop. Plug in a set of earphones which include a microphone that is close to your mouth. Using headphones/earphone helps to avoids feedback and ringing of the audio. Having a close microphone tends to stop the AGC cranking up full and picking up surrounding sounds like vacuum cleaners and dogs barking, etc. Note that earphones that come with mobile phones are 3.5mm diameter and have a tip, 2 x rings and a sleeve. The tip and first ring are the earphone speakers, the second ring is the microphone and the sleeve is the ground connection. Modern laptops will most likely just have the one audio socket for both microphone and speakers so these earphones will work OK. Older laptops will have a microphone socket and a headphone socket. Both are likely to be 3.5mm tip, ring and sleeve sockets. The mobile phone earphones should deliver sound to both ears when plugged into the headphone socket, but there will not be any microphone. In this case you may like to consider... https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/SEVOEM9135/35mm-Headphone-Mic-Audio-Y-Split... "Used mainly for headsets that only have a single jack point and your computer comes with an individual mic and earphone jack point. This cable can be used if you would like to only use 1 or the other mic or earphone features of the headset. 4 Segment 3.5mm Female to Dual 3 Segment 3.5mm Male Audio Cable (One male for Microphone, the other male for headset)." However at $17.25 you may like to investigate other options. ...Maybe something a little bluetooth from aliexpress like this<https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000510594182.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.4e6b57f0CwI973&algo_pvid=cc83f35a-b40e-43ae-8a29-91ae23304856&algo_expid=cc83f35a-b40e-43ae-8a29-91ae23304856-33&btsid=0ab50f0815854302155234974e18ca&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_>. ...and good luck!
Thanks Peter for arranging the virtual meeting. I think getting 4 attendees can be regarded as a success considering everything else going on. Yes, I am all for virtual meetings. I can't getthe microphone to work on my desktop which is very frustrating, but it works fine on my laptop I have used Zoom for other meetings which also works OK. For both you have to kiss your privacy goodby, but Googgle knows all about most of us already, and we haven't anything to hide, so I don't suppose we are giving up much new. I like Ian's idea of having a warmup period. Can anybody find an Open Source solution?
I wish everybody well. We are probably better opsitioned than most to have lots of interesting things to learn and enjoy during an enforced holiday.
The NZ Open Source Society runs their own instance of BigBlueButton (BBB), an open source web conferencing server: https://nzoss.nz/covid-19-response-help-those-working-home
We could get in touch with them to create our own "room".
I doubt that our little VPS that's running our WLUG website would handle an instance of BBB.
Just a quick update: I organized an account with NZOSS and I can now (in theory) run online meetings via BBB. Any volunteers for the next meeting? :-) Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
Brilliant Pete Not just a solution but an Open Source solution! Thanks to Ian for your tips on hardware - microphones, headphones etc - very helpful. Yes, You bet I will join in. Rod On Fri, 17 Apr 2020 at 09:29, Peter Reutemann <fracpete(a)waikato.ac.nz> wrote:
Thanks Peter for arranging the virtual meeting. I think getting 4 attendees can be regarded as a success considering everything else going on. Yes, I am all for virtual meetings. I can't getthe microphone to work on my desktop which is very frustrating, but it works fine on my laptop I have used Zoom for other meetings which also works OK. For both you have to kiss your privacy goodby, but Googgle knows all about most of us already, and we haven't anything to hide, so I don't suppose we are giving up much new. I like Ian's idea of having a warmup period. Can anybody find an Open Source solution?
I wish everybody well. We are probably better opsitioned than most to have lots of interesting things to learn and enjoy during an enforced holiday.
The NZ Open Source Society runs their own instance of BigBlueButton (BBB), an open source web conferencing server: https://nzoss.nz/covid-19-response-help-those-working-home
We could get in touch with them to create our own "room".
I doubt that our little VPS that's running our WLUG website would handle an instance of BBB.
Just a quick update: I organized an account with NZOSS and I can now (in theory) run online meetings via BBB.
Any volunteers for the next meeting? :-)
Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/ _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list -- wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz | To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: https://list.waikato.ac.nz/postorius/lists/wlug.list.waikato.ac.nz
Just a quick update: I organized an account with NZOSS and I can now (in theory) run online meetings via BBB.
Another update: on Monday night, I organized an online meeting via BigBlueButton for the Python meetup, which went quite well (Ian was presenting and Rod was present as well). Presenters can share their screen to demo stuff. For presentations, it is best to upload a PDF and then use the built-in slide show capability of BBB, as it also gives you a (red) virtual laser pointer that helps pointing out things during your presentation (also saves bandwidth and processing at the presenter's end). When sharing the screen mouse pointers don't always seem to be visible for some reason... And, of course, it all runs in the browser. Not third-party installation necessary. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
participants (4)
-
Ian Stewart -
Peter Reutemann -
Peter Reutemann -
Roderick Aldridge