Human communications approach, VOIP improvement, was- Re: [clue-talk] BerkeleyTIP Great progress VOIP...

[john_re]

Hi David, Nate - Thanks for your comments.  :)

==
David - Thanks for defending me against what you perceived as rudeness!
:)  I actually wasn't really offended by Nates comments.  I saw his
"shameless plug" statement, & figured he has a personal enthusiasm for
VOIP stuff, based on his work, & was just sharing what the "big stuff"
could do.

You were on the mark also about that I was "celebrating meeting
attendance, not technical achievement."  I was really happy that the
group had made such a big step up in capability, (from irc to voip in
one meeting, plus greater attendance) when there had been no prior work
on it, & all we were starting from was a bit of info on where some VOIP
servers were. (For anyone curious, here's our VOIP info page:
http://groups.google.com/group/BerkTIPGlobal/web/irc-voip
)

Your comments about the  '"constructive criticism" approach.' are good
too.  IMO, for many technical people (myself included ;) ) it takes
extra conscious effort to put/communicate the "well meaningness" &
"emotional positivity" into words [hence my conscious attempts to use
emoticons when I write.  :)  ;)  ].  Following your approach is a good
method also, it seems to me.  :)

==
Nate - Thanks for the info about what the big HW can do!  :)  Glad to
see you are enthusiastic about VOIP.  :)

As a matter of fact, the reason we got the VOIP conference going so
easily is cause we were using a free service, & all we had to do was
create a channel & log in.  :)

My main personal goal is to create a monthly meeting that people all
over the world can easily have voice communications ability with.  So
I'm looking for some combination of implementation ease &
inexpensiveness [free is nice  ;)  ].

I'd actually looked at either wengo, or something like it.  In
discussions with a friend, we concluded Ekiga & the free VOIP conference
server was a likely good solution.  So, the ProgrammingParty part of the
Nov meeting was to give it a try - & it worked out fantastically well! 
:)

One improvement we noted that we'd like to make came from the fact that
with that service there was no way to tell who was actually _in_ the
conference.  That prompted the goal of trying to figure out a way to
accomplish that for this next meeting, as the "ProgrammingProject" part
of the Dec 6th meeting.

(So, the current plan will be to discuss at the meeting various options,
one being to learn about & set up an Asterisk server, & learn to
configure it so we can get a way to see who is logged into the voip
conference.)

So, Nate, ;) , since you seem to know some stuff about VOIP systems, if
you'd care to join the VOIP conference for this meeting (we have an IRC
channel too) & help us work up to a higher level of technical VOIP
conferencing ability, I'm sure your contributions would be appreciated. 
:)

Maybe you know a way to get one of the free conferencing services to
show who is logged into a channel???


==
David & Nate (& everyone on this list) - I hope you both/all can join
with us for at least part of the meeting.  :)  Just stop by & say "hi"
on irc if you're really busy this saturday.  People can participate from
home, or wherever.  No need to get a group together - one can merely
connect up individually.  Anyone wanting to try the VOIP stuff, get a
mic & headphones, & use a VOIP client (Ekiga was what I think everyone
used in November).  Do a "loop back" server test, to make sure your VOIP
system is working properly.

Join us on IRC if you haven't used VOIP before, & all the friendly
people here will try & help out anyone who needs advice or help in
getting their VOIP going.  :)

I hope BerkeleyTIP gets a contingent from the Colorado Linux Enthusiasts
this Dec 6 meeting!  :)


===============================================================
On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:18:08 -0700 (MST), "David L. Willson"
<DLWillson at TheGeek.NU> said:
> Nate:
> 
> My humble suggestion is this.  When you 'yawn' at what another guy is
> working on, for reasons that aren't relevant, you're being rude.  Don't
> be rude to John.  John is giving a lot of his time to his Free software
> group.  Unless you think there's something wrong with that, don't "pooh
> pooh" his attendance level, or his software choices, or his skill running
> the software, or anything.  Be constructive, not snide.
> 
> He's working on this thing.  You, apparently, are too tired to do so, or
> you see no reason, or whatever.
> 
> Maybe it's the way you put it.  Let me suggest the "constructive
> criticism" approach.  Maybe words like, "If you're not attached to your
> current VOIP solution, I'd like to suggest that you try "x".  I think
> you'll get more VOIP with less effort."  You know, phrasing that focuses
> on the potential benefit to the person being criticized.
> 
> Maybe that's what you meant, and I just listened poorly.  If so, I
> apologize.
> 
> --David
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Nate Duehr" <nate at natetech.com>
> To: "CLUE talk" <clue-talk at cluedenver.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2008 7:19:14 PM GMT -07:00 US/Canada
> Mountain
> Subject: Re: [clue-talk] BerkeleyTIP Great progress VOIP November - Dec 6
> =	Improve VOIP
> 
> David L. Willson wrote:
> >> We went from in September having no online attendees,
> >> to in October having 1 person remote on IRC, to in
> >> November having 7 people around the US all in a VOIP conference!  It was
> >> _fantastic_!  I was very impressed.  
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > 7 ports for something new is cool, I guess.
> > 
> > It's somewhat, um... "Yawn" for those of us doing this commercially for 
> > a long time, though...
> > 
> > Nate:
> > 
> > 1. You're being a jerk.
> 
> Didn't mean to be.  Just sharing an interest in "VoIP" systems and 
> sending a link to a box I work on that does "really big VoIP".
> 
> I said it was a shameless plug, sheesh!
> 
> > 2. John is celebrating meeting attendance, not technical achievement.
> 
> Thought that it said "Improve VOIP" for the December 6th topic, so I 
> guess I misread what his goals are for the next meeting.
> 
> Heck I got the impression that THIS meeting was spent screwing around 
> with VoIP more than getting the agenda done, whatever it was supposed to 
> be... so I pointed out that there are better (completely baked, done, 
> working) Linux solutions for video and audio conferencing.
> 
> Why screw around with tools that are already working when you have a 
> meeting to hold?
> 
> > 3. If he were celebrating technical achievement, it would be within the scope of Free software, not software overall, and your yawn/snipe would still be non sequitur.
> 
> We're allowed to celebrate Free software, but achievements outside of 
> that are worthless on Linux?  I think I understand now.
> 
> (Saying that everything accomplished outside of Free Software is crap, 
> isn't going to attract too many people to the group, nor is it true.  Is 
> CLUE promoting Linux or Free Software?  I seem to recall quite a few 
> closed-source software vendors at the ClueFest, back when that event 
> happened many many years ago.  And yes, I hung around the Debian booth 
> and brought an old iMac running Debian to let folks play with it.  Back 
> then my goal was "hardware agnostic", now my more recent vision seems to 
> be "OS agnostic".  Back then it was "pick the best OS that will run on 
> ANY hardware platform and look/behave the same".  Today it's "pick the 
> best applications that will run on any OS and use those".  Never once 
> during this process did I care about the LICENSE of that software.  I 
> think I convinced myself I did and played "fanboi" of RMS/Free for a 
> little while, but it was quickly snuffed by needing to get real work
> done.)
> 
> I get into arguments with you, an otherwise nice guy, because I don't 
> believe or follow the Free/RMS Cult, most of the time, anymore.  Why do 
> you care what I believe?  We're both using Linux, and this is a Linux 
> list, isn't it?  I never saw the "check your evil closed-source software 
> ways at the door" warning on the CLUE website.
> 
> Use whatever works, I tell folks... want to conference on Linux?
> 
> There's both open and closed tools.   Some of the closed ones are pretty 
> nice.
> 
> Try 'em out.
> 
> http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/
> http://www.webex.com/
> 
> Hmm, found a couple new ones I haven't tried... works on all platforms 
> that will run Flash.  (Uh oh, more evil closed stuff I guess.)
> 
> http://www.sightspeed.com
> http://www.wengomeeting.com/
> 
> The leaders in "killer apps" continue to prove that the OS platform 
> simply DOESN'T MATTER anymore.  It's irrelevant, other than if it has 
> enough market share, you port to it.
> 
> The best apps now run on anything... that can keep enough users to be 
> big enough to worry about.  Linux needs to figure out how to appeal to 
> more people so it can garner those closed application vendors.  Wasn't 
> that always the complaint that drivers are hard to hack, because vendors 
> don't see Linux as all that big a deal?  Isn't the best way to "get 
> there" to have applications that the other OS's have, so people can 
> migrate and have their old tools ... and THEN learn there's alternatives?
> 
> Call me crazy... but I see it that way...
> 
> Sorry if my comments were somehow inappropriate.  I figured if I 
> flat-out said, "Fire up Skype and get on with the meeting.  What's the 
> big deal?"  So I decided to link to a nifty "big box" I work on instead, 
>   that smokes even Asterisk, which is pretty interesting and good... but 
> can't keep up with dedicated DSP hardware for conference applications. 
> Asterisk wins any day in raw price tag, it doesn't win in performance or 
> audio quality (lack of delay).
> 
> Sometimes you want to buy the Cessna 172, and not spend the next three 
> years building an RV-4 in a hangar from scratch.  All depends on what 
> you need to get done and how much money you have on hand, and what you 
> need to get done on what timeline.
> 
> If they have time to mess with barely baked VoIP software, cool... I 
> even said it was inherently cool.  You learn a lot about VoIP messing 
> with that stuff.  I don't mind at all.  Been there.  Done that. 
> Probably will again.
> 
> Just pointing out that VoIP isn't supposed to be "difficult" nowadays. 
> That was about 10 years ago.  800# conferencing is available for FREE 
> from multiple vendors, if you'll listen to a short advertisement, and 
> larger calls are less than $0.01/minute, per line.  VoIP isn't even 
> necessary, just pick up the telephone... to have a nationwide meeting 
> these days, is CHEAP... CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP.   (Thanks to REALLY big 
> closed-source boxes with such high densities that people can afford to 
> almost give the service away.)
> 
> Nate