Here we are half way through the first decade of this brave new century, and in our up-hill struggle for sustainability and social justice wouldn't it be rather dull of us if we did not take full advantage of the tools that are available to advance our agenda. You will see elsewhere in these pages some of the other means of communications in support of international group work. But in this section we concentrate on several new e-tools that we have had the good luck to bring on board with the collaboration of several generous groups and programs who share our public service goals and philosophy.
Step 1 - Skype: Free IP Telephone
Skype is a world wide communications service offering free or almost free phone calls anywhere in the world.
We have foudn since it is easy to install and enormously cost-effective that even our most technology wary colleauges are able toget the swing of this and more over to it comfortale without having to undersgo some kind of wrnnching culture change.
It is our goal to get all of our international coleuags over to this handy means of communicating (or some simliar, see below for a few more optoins), since we are convinced that people who are working to push the frontiers in these imprtant areas need to have easier and cheaper access to each other.
Click here to get full backgournd information on Skype, as well as step by step guidelines for the very easy downlad and install routine. The whoel thnig shoud take you ten minueres. And if you wish to test your system, just pop the name ericbritton into the address box and you will be directly in touch with us here. Quailty: very high. Cost: zero.
Step 2: Sightspeed videoconferencing and learning system (free)
If you are comfortable in this general technology environment, all you have to do is
click here and follow your nose. If not, just drop down to the next paragraph and the leads it provides to facilitate your access.
First easy video connect(PC and Mac support, multilingual)
The free SightSpeed.com package is the fastest and easiest to make that first contact. Works for both PC and Mac.
The routine is straight-forward with quick and clear step by step instructions for your first visit (download plug-in and off we go). Your cost for use with us: zero! (And later if you decide to use it mo0re generally in support of your work, very cheap.)
System requirements: Ideally in addition to your high speed internet connection and basic computer set-up, with sound card (see
System Check below, ideally you have a proper webcam (example: good Logitech model, again see below). But even that is not absolutely necessary for the trial. If you are without camera, you will still be able to hear and see us in this first step.
And if you are not accustomed to this sort of thing, courage! In truth it's no big deal. You will quickly get comfortable with this new and very useful functionality. Very high quality Help & On-Line Support available direct from: http://www.sightspeed.com. Be sure to check out your system and equipment requirements first (more on this below).
Still running into problems and areas of uncertainty? Don't worry, pick up the phone and let us hear from you via +331 4326 1323 or try an email at postmaster@ecoplan.org.
And once you get comfortable with this, we can begin to look further and start to make use of some of the more complete group conferencing packages.
MSN Messenger: When we collaborate on a group project, we ask each member of the team to check in via MSN Messenger (that's http://messenger.msn.com/) and it's free.. We find this the best way either to knock gently on the door to set up a conferencing appointment, or alternately for you to leave a message to indicate that you dropped in, and when you'd like to hear from us, etc.
MSN Messenger also offers a useful complement to both Click to Meet and SightSpeed, especially for the latter since it permits additional group work functionality, allowing for such things as simultaneous sharing and viewing of documents, webpages, high speed file transfer, whiteboards, chat, etc.)
Group work and conference environment (Stage 2)
Once you have been on line a few times with our 'alpha' or learning system thanks to SightSpeed, it will be easy for you to take the next step, which is our much more complete and powerful group work and conferencing environments. The excellent and ever evolving software for this has been developed by a group called First Virtual Communications, based on early work carried out at Carnegie Melon University going back a full decade. It is a mature product that works. We are grateful to our long time friends and colleagues at the Construction IT Centre of the University of Maribor in Slovenia for making these sites available to us for our pioneering public interest work.
Note: When you enter either of these sites for the first time, please bear in mind that there is no need for you to register. Thus when it asks you to "sign in" you can safely ignore and keep moving right along, as if no one ever asked. (Later when you decide to join and wish to make fuller use of the capabilities, we can set up your sign in routine.)
Click to access to our virtual office (appears in own window)
Our virtual office is intended for private meetings and consultations, including eventual initial conversations about either our on-going work, future projects or ideas that you may have for collaboration or support. (The full office address in case you wish to pop it into your IE browser direct is: http://cgiserver.uni-mb.si:8080/clicktomeet/index.htm?ID=200. If I am not there when you check in, please drop me an email note and we can setup a mutually convenient time for a meeting.)
Click to access to Conference facility(appears in own window)
There is more to this than just videoconferencing (a powerful state of the art tool for our daily uses in any event). The program works to turn all more commonly used applications into a multi-level group work environment, integrating with the common desktop applications, your web browser, Windows Messenger and Outlook for calendaring and scheduling. The simple upload of PowerPoint, Word and Excel files allows seamless collaboration with others in the conference. (The full conference room address in case you wish to pop it into your IE browser direct is: http://cgiserver.uni-mb.si:8080/clicktomeet/index.htm?ID=16143.)
Both of these group work programs -- PC only, sorry -- are comprehensive tool sets for distance group work: they offer not only offer direct or group videoconferencing and/or voice access, but they also accommodate different levels of participation (works with full webcam/sound, sound only, no-see no-hear but view visual proceedings). You will see more about this as you get into the programs themselves.
However if you are not familiar with this technology, we counsel that you check out the following. A little care here will go a long way to make this an easier and more effective experience.
What you have here is one-click access to some very complete group work facilities, which you will find amply explained below and on the sites themselves. But let's start by checking out your system requirements, showing you first an optimum but still quite affordable set-up, following that with a rig that is perfectly useful for daily operation.
Best audio, video, data experience:
Pentium IV 1.8 GHx 512Mb
QCIF video size at 30fps w/ 8 videos received
G.722 audio
Echo cancellation enabled (Windows XP)
Still quite good:
CPU Windows: Pentium III 800 MHz 256 Mb
Operating Systems Windows: 2000 or XP
Macintosh: G4 800 MHz or faster
Macintosh: OS X 10.3 or higher
Communications:
High speed (broadband) connection: Min. > 256k
Peripherals
Sound card, with headset or speaker phone
Webcam (Click here for a useful listing. Note: If you wish only voice access, you will not need a webcam.)
IP Conferencing although fast advancing is still very much in the process of finding its way. This means that when things are well prepared and conditions correspond, then it can offer an extremely satisfying and useful experience. On the other hand if you are working alone and without good support, you will need to exercise patience and forbearance from time to time. And in this a little knowledge about what you are actually trying to do helps.
The bottom line: if you have a low frustration threshold and expect things always to work the first time around, this is probably not for you. Come back again in a year or so and you will certainly find a more facile working environment. But then too, you will have missed twelve months of working creatively with others perhaps many miles away and who just may have a lot to share with you, to teach you, and, yes, to learn from you. And of course, imagine all the CO2 that you are not burning when you keep off that plane. That should make you feel good, and the planet will certainly thank you.
Thanks to a long standing relationship of friendly cooperation and exchange on matters relating to our deeply shared common interests and commitment to the sustainability agenda, the use of this system is free to The Commons and our programs and international associates and supported, with all costs and technical overheads most kindly covered by our colleagues at the Construction IT Centre of the University of Maribor in Slovenia.
Summary: The Electronic/Environment (e/e for short) is a state-of-the-art multi-level communications toolset developed over the last decade and deployed in our work with an expanding group of international partners and technologies in various configurations in specific projects aimed at advancing the sustainability agenda.
Already on Skype? Click here to call direct.
Carnegie Melon University going back a full decade. It is a mature product that works. We are grateful to our long time friends and colleagues at the Construction IT Centre of the University of Maribor in Slovenia for making these sites available to us for our pioneering public interest work.
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