UK Dept. of Health were using it to help interface with their on-premise VC but have now moved fully to Teams like the rest of us. Does it have a free version for non-enterprise use?
Bluejeans has a 7-day trial period but nothing like zoom (40 min conf for free).
We are trying to stay as much as possible out of microsoft solutions. No teams, no outlook, hardly no office (libre office)... Only windows 7 and 10.
GV
Working at home now for a few days and our company uses Skype for business and it's just started using Microsoft Teams.
Teams is really good so far for holding meetings with a few people at once, can share the screen, it has tools for you and other users to annotate the screen and if you have office 365 there's lots of add on apps like planners (task management) etc. that can also be used. The only downside so far is it's a bit clunky to do anything more than the basics and not the most user friendly.
While it is far from perfect. I've also used most of the other enterprise tools and don't know any that are better to be honest. But they all take a bit of getting used to. Bear with it, it doesn't take too long to get familiar. You may find my hints and tips helpful too.
2 Likes
High votes for Zoom. But UberConference is the best I've ever seen. It has a great user interface, and a smooth and reliable multi-person connection. It's also the most invisible or unobtrusive.
I've been an attendee with all of 'em, and I've hosted with GoToMeeting/Jive and Skype. After much consideration, Zoom and UberConference are the best, in my humble opinion.
I'd not see UberConference before so thanks for sharing that. A quick look through its legal stuff reveals the usual US horrifying giveaway of personal rights. I particularly liked:
You agree not to directly or indirectly through a third party engage in any conduct or make any communication (public or private) that disparages Dialpad or Services in any way. Such communications include, but are not limited to, publishing, posting, printing, disseminating, or otherwise making such disparaging statements on or through the Internet, in any blog, or through any other form of social media. You further agree not to solicit or encourage, directly or indirectly, any such statements, comments, or communications by any third-party. In accordance with the termination provisions below, Dialpad may terminate your access to the applications or Services if You breach the requirements of this section.
And
You hereby grant Dialpad and its agents an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, fully paid-up, royalty-free license (with right to sublicense) to use, reproduce, publish, and display your name, trademarks, service marks, designs, logos, and symbols in connection with such purpose.
However, the good news is that their privacy policy is actually rather good. Covering GDPR and not selling identifiable data to 3rd-parties so well done them on that one.
So they are certainly well ahead of something like HouseParty.
Added to my list of potentially useful services especially as they have upped their free limits to 50 people and 5 hour max. duration. I don't think that I could rely on them for business use due to their non-disparagement clause and potential trademark/copyright issues but they look as though they would be useful during the current crisis if you didn't want to use Google Hangouts or Zoom.
3 Likes
For further amusement, I'm starting to experiment with virtual webcam tools. These let you do clever things with your webcam stream and re-present it.
Of the free tools, Open Broadcasting Software (OBS) seems to be one of the most popular and widly used by YouTubers and the like. There are virtual webcam plugins for it as well.
One fun thing I noted is that there is a websocket plugin for OBS which would mean that you could control your live broadcast from Node-RED 
What I really want to do is a green-screen background replacement so that it looks like I'm somewhere interesting when doing those boring virtual meetings. 
1 Like
Ah mate, get that going and post your results here for us all to pillage. 
I've got to this so far but I need to get back to real work again. I'm lacking a suitable green/blue background so I might not be able to do the full effects for the moment.
This is what you see in OBS Studio. The right window is live and the left is the scene to be swapped in next. I have two webcams active. An external one and my laptop. You can fade between them.
This is the preview of what you see in Microsoft Teams using the virtual webcam output - note that I'm using Teams' background blur here.
1 Like
Here we go. Not perfect but my wife found me some blue material. A little dark but it works OK.
I am now sat in a Swedish Winter backdrop
Haha, I'm certainly using this in my next video conference! Maybe I'll add some ambient noise as well for more realism 
6 Likes
Just add snow !
2 Likes
Zoom has a virtual backdrop and does not need a green screen. We are having our first zoom call with our grand kids (ages 10,7,4,1.5) this afternoon and I downloaded a Disney World photo to use as the backdrop. We are going to put our sunglasses on and pretend we went to Disney World!!
3 Likes
My wife is using free Zoom for girlfriend chats, virtual bookgroup and Friday "pub" night with the girls. Much noise and hilarity seems to arise so I assume they are having fun - I stay well out of the way
She has just learned how to do the backdrops.
1 Like
All that in 40 minutes? Respect 
1 Like
Just set up a discord server for my peer group. Video is working fine for up to 9. Unlimited audio / and text channels.
All like #irc on steroids. Real fun. Lucky me my 15 year old son gave me a kickstart.
2 Likes
This article about the things Zoom supposedly does with your data is a bit worrying, though I can't vouch for its accuracy. Theregister used to be regarded as reasonably reliable but I may be out of date on that.
Yes, I noted that too to some UK Government colleagues the other day but apparently it has been judged OK for government use. I also note that they've just yanked some of the FB stuff out of the mobile app as it was discovered that it was capturing far more data than was necessary.
Still I'd rather my family use them than use HouseParty, that has some well dodgy stuff in the terms and conditions.
I'd always rather use tools that have an obvious income stream (e.g. they actually sell a service) than ones that claim to be "free" but then hide loads of c**p.
2 Likes
As demonstrated from the very top today - https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1244985949534199808
Just a shame he's exposed the meeting ID and the usernames of all ministers... anyone going to dial into tomorrow's cabinet meeting?
3 Likes
Thankfully, they are at least using a password protected meeting ID. Though doubtless that wouldn't stop someone determined. I've been seeing lots of other opsec failures highlighted by that pic as well.
And don't get me started please on the jobsworth in the Cabinet Office's IT department I had to deal with today. I can usually take these things with a pinch of salt but when we are trying to organise local and national collaboration between hundreds of organisations and thousands of people, to be smarmily asked why we aren't using the CO's "approved" system made me see red. Given that their systems are chosen by some very dubious decision making by political hacks rather than experts. Incidentally, their approved system is Google's G-Suite and ours is Microsoft Office 365. Guess which one is used by the majority of government and health organisations and which isn't?
Sorry, you got me started again! 
Takes deep breath, lets it out slowly and then raises whiskey glass 
2 Likes
this article just hit my mailbox and I thouht I'd share it
