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From: Marcel E. Tschudin (no email)
Date: Thu Sep 01 2005 - 08:18:32 EDT
Peter wrote
> Well, unfortunately for my pipe dreams and fortunately for the Nav List, I think it has been.
> They even pinched my great name for it - Whiteboard. It exists (I think) as part of
> Windows Messenger.
Thank you Peter for your dreams. Yes, there are several type of these messangers allowing to exchange instant messages, files, voice (also Voip) even with the live picture from your webcam. These messangers have all there advantages and disadvantages.
For instant messaging a standard connection to the Internet is suficient. For voice a DSL connection with at least 128kbps is necessary (with 64kbps it is also possible, but only with difficulties). For using voice and webcam one should have more bandwidth, e.g. 256kbps.
As far as I remember (may be other members of the list know more on this):
Windows Messengar and the very simmilar MSN Messanger: If you have your computer protected with a firewall, it is neccessary to open numerous ports to make them work. They are not so good for voice and webcam.
Skype: It is sofar the best for voice communication from PC to PC. It does not require to open additional ports and works through all(?) firewalls. It alows also instant messaging and file-sharing. There is now also a new add-on to Skype, called vSkype, allowing conversation with webcam.
SghtSpeed: Is probably the best program for voice and webcam, it needs only one additional port to be opened in the firewall. If I remember right, it has also features for instant messaging and for file-sharing.
Eyeball Chat: Simmilar as SightSpeed, not so good and requires to open numerous ports of the firewall.
... and there are probably many others. Note that all the programs mentioned are freeware.
To learn more about the problems of the different softwares it is useful to look in their forums.
For the contacts with my sons in UK, I use Skype.
All these messengers are not useful for sharing larger files. For files up to 50MB, I use Rapidshare. I get the German Web page, may be you are able to receive the English version, just check with Google.
That is as far as the "whiteboard" is concerned. The "blackboard" that I mentioned during a discussion with George is still waiting to be invented.
Marcel
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