January 29, 2014
Despite the great preparations, we struglled to join in the conference initially!
For the first day, it was Pollycom at help. Joining the room took some time.
1) One needs to enter following SIP ID: 18.85.8.48 using the remote control.
2) There is a “keypad” that appears on the screen, perhaps when we push '#' and then one can choose the appropriate room to join in. In Fabaacedmy 2014, it is “4” followed by “#” and the PIN is also “4” followed by “#”.
3) Sharing desktop through Pollycom, is obviously not possible, it being an independent device. Or is it?
4) It is very much a need to mute, before one logs in. Otherwise people would have to listen to you and they do tolerate, still it is not wise to log-in unmuted! I think we did that during the second class.
1) Ekiga is a superb, opensource software that worked successfully most of the times. SIP id that needs to be used is sip:18.85.8.48. However, currently, it throws a few issues.
- Sometimes it connects successfully and disconnects abruptly. Then does not connect for a long times. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is facing this issue big-time. When I start Ekiga, “Ekiga did not manage to configure your network settings automatically. You can still use it, but you need to configure your network settings manually.” is shown. http://wiki.ekiga.org/index.php/Enable_port_forwarding_manually guides what to do, however, problem persists. Frankly, I was reluctant to follow the solution, as it asks to configure Router. It is simple to do in a homw network, but not at all possible in an office Environment. So, sadly and respectfully getting away from Ekiga .... Just for now.
- Sharing the screen is not possible by default. A few articles tell us that Screen Sharing can be done, but I did not try that. http://ekiga.1756082.n4.nabble.com/Screen-sharing-td3556639.html exists since May, 2011 and Ekiga does not seem to have taken up this yet.
- Still I like to softphone, it being a great tool in open source domain, and wish to go back to it soon.
2) Jabber Video is a very good tool, available on Windows (not open sourced). It is compatible even with Windows XP 32 bit. Currently, I am using the same one. Ofcourse, eventually I would like to stick to Ekiga – in the spirit of open source.
- Jabber needs a free account to be registered with it. It is simple.
- I also believe that the Audio handling with jabber is perhaps better than that of Ekiga. Jabber sound better than Ekiga.
- Most importantly Jabber has inherent Screen Sharing capability.