OpenMeetings running on Amazon AWS EC2

we successfully installed OpenMeetings on Amazon EC2. It worked out of the box without any huzzle. I think this is good news to a lot of people that would like to scale OpenMeetings for their needs.

Amazon offers already a lot of instances to install as operating system. We have been using one of the over 200 Debian operating systems that have been available.

I think the only important thing is … Never press the reboot system button :) Cause as its a virtual machine all your data is gone!

You also need to check that you are installing OpenMeetings at a location where enough space is left.

OpenMeetings as Facebook Application

you can now use OpenMeeting within Facebook with the application:

Visit the Application at Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=369748959583

Or go directly and add it to your account: http://apps.facebook.com/openmeetings/

OpenMeetings Sugar Module 1.0 Integration - Demo Video

OpenMeetings Sugar Module 1.0 Integration - Demo Video

OpenMeetings 1.1 Key Features Mini Demo

OpenMeetings 1.1 Key Features Mini Demo

OpenMeetings Recording Feature

happy to announce that the Recording of Web-Conferencing Session's in OpenMeetings is ready.

You can test the Recording feature live at http://www.openmeetings.de

Features of the Recorder:

* Platform independent
* Download recorded file as FLV File (to watch offline, publish on your website or through Youtube)
* Private and Public Recordings via a Drag and Drop interface and Folders to organize Recordings
* Recording Timeline gives additional information when attendees are speaking
* Record hole screen + share screen at the the same time
* Seek in the Player to any point

Below is a sample screen from the Recording:

OpenMeetings Recording Sample Screen














And here is a FLV that I Recorded with OpenMeetings and uploaded to Youtube:

when will h.264 and video ever really work on OSX with Adobe Flash Player

A number of websites and TV stations provide their content as Live Stream these days. And it is getting more and more. As they don't want the user to install anything they often choose the Flash Platform to deliver the content. Unfortunately on Apple OSx it works but your CPU has 70-95%. That means after 5 minutes watching you can hear your CPU trying to cool down like hell. And if you have some kind of sensible data on your MacBook you start thinking how much a crash would cost you. So you better switch off. This High-CPU usage is even higher when it comes to h.264 content. With h.264 you can not watch more then 2 minutes. We would not like to talk about the Linux Plugin now ... for Users of that platform its almost impossible. They can be glad that their webcam and microphone is supported so that they can make some Conference Calls.

It is no new problem, it seems like the hardware acceleration that Adobe is proud of is only part of the Windows Platform Plugin, so that Non-Windows users can wait for a long time until they finally will receive Video On Demand in High Definition. Sorry guys but what Adobe delivers here is not more then a Proof-Of-Concept. I by myself am remind by that every day when I try to watch the Live-Cast of N-TV.de or CNN. I could be glad cause that way I hear more radio ... like the famous and commercial free radio soma.fm but I guess it would be better to choose radio because I like to and not because my device does not support Flash Video for more then 10 minutes.

I tried also updating to Flash Player 10.1, I hoped to get better results. I had not the impression that it really improves anything. After encountering that RTMPT-Connection does not work for the Flash Plugin on OSx I had to uninstall everything and install 10.0.xxx again. I don't feel like Experience Matters ^^.

OpenMeetings 1.0 RC1 and Moodle Mod 0.6

we are happy to announce to release 1.0 RC1 of OpenMeetings and the compatible Moodle Module 0.6.

Major changes in Version 1.0 RC1

• New third room-type: "Restricted"
• New Calendar Module to Plan Meetings
• New Room configuration with option to add Default Moderators and Super Moderator
• Super Moderators (cannot be removed)
• Simplified and reworked UI, various bugfixes and help-texts
• New Secure Method for generating HASH's for direct Login via SOAP
• OpenMeetings as WAR-Version
• Various fixes and improvements
• Change to Eclipse Public License for OpenMeetings

Major Changes in Moodle Mod 0.6

• Compatible with latest Nightly Builds and Version 1.0 RC1
• Grouping and Group Configuration
• New 3th Room-Type "Restricted" available via Module Form

There are also Nightly Builds now available and you can compile a complete distribution only by using ANT.
http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/wiki/BuildSourceNew?tm=4#Nightly_Builds

And you can develop all tools according to our new source setup by using simply Eclipse tools.
http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/wiki/BuildSourceNew

Download:
http://openmeetings.googlecode.com/files/openmeetings_1_0_r2688.zip

Moodle Mod:
http://openmeetings.googlecode.com/files/openmeetings_moodle_mod_0_6.zip

Changelog:
http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/wiki/ChangeLog

Flash Player hidden feature - Echo Cancellation and P2P Live Streaming

I recently discovered two features of the Flash Player that are only available for "Premium" customers. These are interesting for Web-Conferencing Systems.

Did you ever notice that this flag in the ActionScript API *useEchoSuppression* does not seem to have any effect to the behavior? (API Docs: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0_de/ActionScriptLangRefV3/flash/media/Microphone.html#useEchoSuppression)
Well it is because there IS NO! This echo Cancellation is only available if you use Adobe Connect Pro. You can find a hole history of reports about this feature and people that investigated at the Adobe Bug Tracker (you have to sign up): http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-273 (this issue has started in August 2008, so its not really new). It seems like Adobe has the Code for the Echo Cancellation ready since SWF 9. But they refuse to include it into the Flash Player for everybody. You get an additional Add-On for this feature.
Another interesting feature can be seen live when you watch the CNN Live Broadcast:

http://edition.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1

you should watch your network through-put. You will encounter after some minutes, that your upload is as big as your download rate! That means the Flash Player is able to use P2P to broadcast a Live Stream. Quite nice, unfortunately it seems the same thing here, you need a modified Version of the Flash Player for that feature.

Lets see how long they can follow that route...

OpenMeetings becomes even more liberal with EPL License

to bring OpenMeetings in line with the License of OpenLaszlo we will switch from the LGPL to the EPL with the next release.

What does that mean for you?
- Actually not that much.

Eclipse Public License is even a bit more liberal then the LGPL

Quote from wikkipedia.org:

The Eclipse Public License is designed to be a business friendly free software license, and features weaker copyleft provisions than contemporary licenses such as the GNU General Public License (GPL). The receiver of EPL-licensed programs can use, modify, copy and distribute the work and modified versions, in some cases being obligated to release their own changes.^[2]

The EPL is approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI)^[3] and the Free Software Foundation (FSF)^[4].

OpenMeetings 0.9 RC3 ready for testing

we are happy to announce the Release 0.9 RC3.
It is a bugfix release for users that have issues with:
- Document or Images that contain special characters (Russian, Scandinavian, German *umlaute*)
- Linux Users that have issues when typing special characters into input-fields

See a the complete changelog:
http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/wiki/ChangeLog