Turbomeeting 200, A Great Utility For Web Meetings For Mac

Popularity of Macintosh systems are growing by leaps and bounds amongst the upwardly mobile professional class. With introduction of products like Mac Book air, Apple is slowly positioning itself as creators of fabulous products designed to cater to high end customers. A lot of these high end customers are looking for Mac web meetings solution that delivers outstanding performance.

Amongst the leading solutions for web meeting for Mac, Turbomeeting 200, a web conferencing solution from RHUB stands out for its optimum mix of features and convenience. It provides outstanding value to its users. Supported Macs include 10.4 or later, Intel or PPC based. It has a default capacity of 2 meeting rooms and 10 concurrent users which means you can host 2 concurrent meetings and have a total of 10 concurrent users for the two meetings. It does not require any downloads to get started with web meetings for Mac. Mac web meetings can also simply be started by typing a URL. The simplicity guarantees that all your attendees join your web meeting. It allows you to present and control remotely, share applications, chat, change colors, pause and schedule meetings. With Mac and RHUB, web conferencing is getting smarter and more functional.

Areas Of Growth In The Online Conferencing Industry

Online Conferencing has remarkably spruced up the modern organizational environment. The technology has already paid rich dividends to numerous entrepreneurs and established businesses. After the exemplary performance of online conferencing at the enterprise level, many visionaries have sensed its applicable potential in myriad domains the foreseeable future. The technique finds a wide application in number of other sectors such as Medicare facilities, education, governmental operations and many more.

Online conferencing provides a technically redefined way for an effective exchange of knowledge and culture. Online conferencing enables the employees to perform in a more productive manner. Professionals are now equipped with new mechanisms such as online presentation, which will help the officials to hold discussion on any significant project. Online Presentation can also be utilized in other fields like health care and education. Doctors are now able to discuss serious issues using web conferencing. Students from different regions will maximize their learning by getting a tremendous exposure by the concept of online conferencing. With the growing operations of e-Governance, various online conferencing tools will definitely have a broad applicability in delivering the role of the government. It also allows citizens in close

Growing usage of Social Networking tools in Business as a collaboration tool

IT has considerably changed the whole modus operandi of carrying out business operations in the current service oriented scenario. These transformations can be observed in both inter and intra organizational working pattern. Furthermore, business with Internet collaboration has delivered amazing productivities to the enterprises.

In quest of attaining the target oriented deliverances to the end-users, organizations are coming up with some advanced communication technologies employing Internet collaboration. Social Networking is the latest addition to this innovative list. Social Networking enable the employees to establish productive communication irrespective of their physical locations. Wikis and WebBlogs are proving to be the most instrumental collaboration tools. These collaboration tools have substantially reduced the human latency at organization levels and thereby significantly improve the outputs of an organization.

These channel also strengthening the personal relationships among employees which will further contribute constructively in empowering the enterprises to counter the challenges put forth by the ever advancing market. Conclusively it can be easily interpreted that the emerging concept of Social Networking will surely redefine the operational methods of contemporary enterprises.

Why Online Business Meetings Mandate Creation Of An Archive

Online business meetings have caught the fancy of the corporates. Online meetings can be held using the online conferencing software which replicates a face-to-face meeting. A lot of work goes into conducting such meetings but there is a critical element of post meeting work that is essential to the successful completion of the process. Like any other physical meeting or conference requires preparing the minutes of the meeting and keeping a copy of the presentation after the meeting is over, an online meeting also requires all this to be done. The practice is called archiving.

Archiving is necessary to keep a record for all future retrievals and references. It could be accessed any time after the actual meeting. Evaluations, questionnaires, important developments have to be stored as important documents. It also acts as a great means of reference tool for those who could not attend the meeting at all or for those members who missed it in parts. The same presentation can be used to show to a new audience as well. Almost all organizations maintain archives of their online meetings. They are sometimes even posted on the company’s websites as part of their mandatory disclosures to the public. It also brings transparency to online conferencing.

Video Conferencing Services – Challenges And Trends

Video conferencing is a tool that creates a virtual meeting environment, enabling two or more people to interact in real time. You can schedule online meetings, conferences or presentations with your clients or business partners from within the confines of your office. The trend has been catching up recently with traveling becoming costlier day by day and time becoming scarce. The time one spends traveling can be utilized to concentrate on strategic issues or in decision making. Moreover, it allows better collaboration and connectivity among employees who are distributed far and wide.

However, the technology is still in its adoption stage. It has traditionally been believed to be slow, with fuzzy video and audio quality, poor connectivity and huge installation and operating costs. Plus, it requires one to go to some special place to use the facility. Many people also hold the notion that it presents a “made-up” environment wherein people do not behave their real selves. Also with advancement in technology, things seem to be moving on to the brighter side. Reducing costs, newer innovations, improved quality of video and sound, consistency of feed, better bandwidths, increasing awareness and education, all are fuelling its success. Conferencing services and online meetings help organizations in better collaboration, faster action and getting quick responses. Despite of the many challenges, the technology is paving its way towards success and popularity and the trend is likely to continue.

The Role Of Handhelds As Collaboration Tools In Evolution Of Unified Communications

Mobility is one aspect of unified communications that is likely to be on the cards in the coming times. The aim of unified communications is to provide remote access to employees and it promises to act as a great collaboration tool, connecting employees throughout the organization. Absence of Mobility is one issue that is keeping unified communications from truly meeting its definition. However, recent developments and advancements in technology are trying to bridge the gap. By incorporating the element of mobility into unified communications, collaboration becomes all the more easy and cost- effective. Handheld devices let you be in touch with your employees while they are on the move. It does not necessitate the employee to be fixed to his PC, fax or phone. Mobility is a step in the right direction that will help unified communications to become more functional. It provides more flexibility and access. The aim of unified communications and mobile communication is the same – easy and flexible access to employees when they are away from their work stations or are distributed. Blending of the two technologies would surely provide better opportunities and scope. The concept is still in its infancy. But mobility is certainly going to play a major role in the evolution of unified communications in near future.

How Web Conferencing Is Revolutionizing Distance Learning

Distance learning has been increasingly becoming the preferred medium of education among a lot of people. It is popular because it allows students to work or engage in other activities and avoid daily travel to institute. However, traditionally, distance learning involves certain fixed hours of face-to-face interaction between students and their mentors. But due to issues such as shortage of time and distance, many students could not manage to attend such classes which used to bear upon the quality of the education received. But with modern technologies like web conferencing and presentation softwares in place, this problem can be easily addressed now. It is proving to be a real boon to the retired, the disabled and people in far flung areas as it gives them an opportunity to pursue education at a place and time of their convenience.

Web conferencing allows students and their mentors to interact in a real time environment. The presentation software combines both audio and video components, providing a unique, innovative and collaborative learning experience to the students. It is capable of delivering online simulation activities, case studies, presentations, spreadsheets, lectures and all other kind of support needed to impart instructions. Therefore, it is quite evident that web conferencing and interactive presentation softwares have revolutionized the way education has been imparted over the years. They have overcome time, distance and cost barriers. A large number of universities all around the world are rapidly adopting this technology to spread their reach and better connect to their students.

Why Its Pays To Have Remote Tech Support For Your Employees

In the rapidly evolving business scenario, organizations are increasingly looking at remote tech support as means of providing affordable technical assistance to employees spread across different locations.

Many times it is impossible and inconvenient for the system administrator to personally visit the employees and fix their computer issues. But with the help of remote computer assistance, the task becomes quite easy. They can diagnose a computer and repair the problem even without having to visit it personally. Quite evidently, these services are very cost effective. The employees are also benefited as they do not have to wait for the engineer to come and solve their technical troubles. They can get the needful assistance sitting at their terminals only. It, thus, considerably saves upon their time and energy.

Thus, online tech support or remote computer support is an economical, fast, convenient and reliable solution for providing computer and other technical assistance to the employees. To leverage myriad benefits of remote computer support, a lot of products are being introduced into the market. Since most of these solutions are fairly economical it makes a great business sense for organizations to incorporate remote tech support as a cost effective strategy for increasing productivity.

Salient Features That A Remote Help Desk Must Have

The trend to provide remote computer support has been catching up of late. It enables the companies to access their customer's or employee's computer to fix a problem, from anywhere in the world and remotely support critical processes with convenience. It serves as mean to improve customer support, enhance employee productivity and save time.

However, to be fully efficient and prove beneficial to the customers, remote help desks should possess some essential features. Most importantly they should be firewall friendly, reliable and secure.

Some Remote help desks also come laden with advanced features such as remote printing capabilities to print directly to the user's computer, transfer files and 'Access Notification' feature, which is basically meant for improving security. The most critical ingredient to the successful Remote help desk is the appropriate technology and tools which are utilized by the Remote Agent and management. Some other must-haves for a remote help desk include reliable and fast Internet connectivity, authorized access to the enterprise's network, connectivity and access to relevant information, useful databases and other required tools to provide remotely assistance to the customers or employees. Not to mention that teleconferencing tools, cell phones, printers, fax, scanners are also needed to provide solutions to the clients.

Online Remote Support -Dealing With Customers Who Have Less Patience

Customers hold the key to the success of any organization. Keeping the customers happy and responding to their problems efficiently thus becomes essential. But it is a task easier said than done. A business owner has to handle different kinds of customers everyday - some really easy to pursue while others might be hard nuts to crack.

Customer handling and query solving becomes all the more difficult in case of companies where large number of customer grievances are usually addressed through online remote support. Researches have shown that customers often get impatient while waiting to get through the remote customer support services. They usually want quick assistance without willing to wait unnecessarily in phone queues. It is not always that the customer will be right but as a service provider you are required to maintain you poise. Give your customer a patient hearing even if he is offensive and irate. Upon receiving his complaint try understanding the problem from his point of view, apologize and assure him that his problem will now be immediately attended upon. Sometimes it helps to agree with the person who is angry because that is the only way to make him listen to you.

You can provide vents to the customers to release their anger by allowing them to fill feedback forms or post messages on the website regarding their satisfaction levels. These small activities can help you a great deal in tackling the tacky customers

Great Remote Access Support Through Turbomeeting 520

Remote access enables you to reach a remote unattended computer irrespective of whether you are located in your office or home, from your traveling laptop. Of the various solutions currently available in the market for remote access support; TURBOMEETING-520 comes across as sure winner owing to its superlative performance.

It has a default capacity of 5 support sessions which can be maximized up to 20 support sessions. The dimensions are 9” x 6” x 1.4” (L x D x H) and it weighs 2.4 lbs. It works on 10/100 Ethernet requiring a power supply of 4.5W, DC 5V 2A (External Adapter) and it is fanless.

For small and medium organizations that plan to introduce remote computer access in their organizations ready to go appliance is a great boon. Just an installation is required on the network and 24x7 unlimited Web conferences can begun. No on-going IT support is needed.

Using Service Oriented Architecture and enabling secure collaboration.

Service oriented architecture is related to the bifurcation of a business process into several sub components, called services, which are capable of interacting, and maintain secure collaboration with each other as well as when swapping data. It integrates the different business systems so that the end -user gets a more integrated view of the business. This collaboration relies extensively on online coordination with the web and corporate intranets that serve as the backbone.

A reason for the growing popularity of SOA and its rapidly increasing adoption by the industry lies in the fact that it acts as a simple solution to an organization's problem of integrating its complex and distributed IT resources. It enables easy management of these resources, which considerably reduces the cost and saves time by reusing the services already built. This allows businesses to be more responsive to the needs of the customers and suppliers, providing them satisfying solutions to their problems. Convenient, accurate, and integrated access to information also leads to quicker and smoother decision-making by the managers. It also improves the productivity of employees by enabling them to work on improved and integrated business processes and access systems and information.

Improved relations with customers and suppliers, enhanced productivity of employees and improved operations generate positive results for the enterprise. It also enables secure online collaboration amongst various divisions allowing them to harness talent across teams for a common objective.

Why Understanding The Technology Behind Web Conferencing Is Imperative To Gain Its Optimum Benefits...?

It is often said that one should learn the tricks before they master the trade. Understanding the technology behind web conferencing becomes even more imperative as it is an interactive interface between people, online. It requires managing yourself, your presentation as well as the technology as the web makes it possible to have a real-time conversation. During web conferencing, the other person can very well judge your movements. You cannot fumble, and if you do, you might possibly end up losing your client or making a fool out of yourself.

A thorough understanding and practicing how to manage the conference would help you concentrate more on your web presentation. It will make you more confident as you will know how to control the things. You can provide your participants a smoother flow of events rather than having to stop in between to think what buttons to press next.

It is same as a professor would come prepared with his slides and OHP in the class, rather than go haywire and waste everybody's precious time. Prior understanding also leaves an impression that you are well organized and have done your homework well. It would tell your client or your participants at the other end that you have really put in efforts and that would show in your poised virtual appearance and confident presentation.

Unified Communications (UC) and Collaboration Tools that Allows For the Optimization of Corporate Gains

Communication is one of the key factors which contribute to the success of any organization in the contemporary business setup. An organization, which fails to understand the importance of communication, is likely to stay behind and fail to gain competitive advantage in these times of great opportunities. An organization needs a collaboration tool to communicate all the time with its employees, suppliers, customers, and business partners. The advancement in technology has brought into existence various means of communication, ranging from telephone, instant messaging, faxes, e-mails to web conferencing, web meetings, unified PDAs etc. On one end, the picture may seem to be rosy but at the very other moment one realizes that more options means more problems.

Effective communication requires that messages be delivered to the right person, at the right time, in the right place and through the right medium. This is where the concept of Unified Communications (UC) comes in. As the name suggests, UC means integration of different kinds of communication systems in the organization to ensure that the user can access the required person without having to worry about the communication device being used by the recipient. It is a high end collaboration concept which enables organizations to bring together its distributed and increasingly mobile employees and thus save upon the costs of communication.

Unified communications, through conferencing services helps organizations increase the productivity of their business processes in myriad ways. Improvement in processes leads to smoother workflow, reduction in wastages and avoidance of delays. Quicker and integrated communications can thus enhance the profit making capacity by augmenting the decision-making mechanism and the knowledge pool in the organization.

Auxiliary Information Tools - The Future of Internet Collaboration

Auxiliary information tools refer to the new class of technologies that support the Internet. These basically include three upcoming methodologies: Unified Communications (UC), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Social Computing. All these tools aim at increasing the efficiency, productivity, operational synergies and profits of the enterprise. These three collaboration tools provide facilities to manage and organize communication, support web conferencing and online business meetings.

Many of these concepts are still at the stage of infancy. These three technologies enable Internet based collaborations with the stakeholders of an organization, by supporting online business meetings, improving business processes, and enabling integration of IT with the overall objectives of the organization.

The three technologies essentially converge to improve the image of the enterprise in the marketplace as a quality service provider and make it dynamic to the changing demands of the customers and the needs of the environment. A set of various enabling tools are key to their overall convergence. Prominent amongst them are online collaboration software that forms the foundation for effective internet collaboration. These technologies coupled with other tools, allow for seamless flow of information over corporate intranets and extranets along with the public Internet bringing stakeholders accessible to each other.

Topic: How to spice up your web presentations

An interesting web presentation is a result of certain fundamental rules that must be followed religiously. First of all, it must be woven around a story line that eventually serves as the operating system for entire presentation. Story line must be as per audience expectations and needs.

A conscious effort should be made to organize your information into some (preferably three or four distinct sections while simultaneously ensuring that it adds credibility to your story line. Now include only those details that support your story line and also fit into the sections already delineated. With these three layers in place you can create a very compelling, convincing and integrated web presentation. Story line should be used for filtering out extraneous information.

Further, use examples which corroborate the story line. Examples must be chosen smartly, keeping time and scope constraints for the presentation in mind. Make examples walk-through demos or scenarios wherever possible. You can creatively use a picture for anchoring your story line. A picture has the capacity to serve as the focus for your story line. It can be helpful in keeping that story line prevalent in audience’s mind long after the presentation. The picture may be a photograph, an image, or a simple diagram.

Finally, streamline the slides in order to fit them appropriately into your data chunks.

Then perform the following 5-point check on your online presentation:

1. Does this slide add to my overall theme?

2. Does this slide support the presentation at this point of time?

3. Is the information provided relevant?

4. Can this information be hidden and shown only on demand?

5. Are the diagrams telling a story or just showing data?

The following points present the basic rules for a good web presentation in a nutshell:

· Create a professional look.

· Presentation must be short, concise and to-the-point.

· Highlight ideas and results.

· Presentation must be organized in one directory tree and relative links must only be utilized.

· Presentation must not exceed more than a couple megabytes

Application Sharing -a great way to collaborate on complex projects

Complex projects often require two or more users to access a shared document or application from their respective terminals simultaneously in real time. At times the shared document or application may run on a computer which may located at remote location which necessitates a the requirement for remote access.

Remote users can either have control access or view access. Control access is useful in case of complex projects as it allows remote users to control, edit, and also manipulate the shared content. This configuration is widely used for facilitating remote collaboration among virtual teams. Team members may collaborate on a document, making instant changes in real-time. View Access allows remote users a passive view of the shared content. This is highly recommended for complex projects as remote users lack ability to edit or effect change in case of shared content. This configuration is suitable for a training scenario. Remote user (trainee) may passively view all the actions of host (trainer) without interrupting or manipulating the shared content.

One of the most fantastic tools for application sharing is found in the RHUB TurboMeeting range of products. RHUB provides great value to its customer’s by bundling four different applications in one appliance. It allows you the liberty to share a single application only thus securing your privacy.

TurboMeeting 500 - The perfect web conferencing solution for SME's

Collaboration is the keyword in the success of any enterprise that works in terms of small groups of highly resourceful individuals. In case of small and medium enterprises collaboration is even more important as these enterprises generally have various resource constraints.

Small and medium enterprises generally require intra-group and inter- group collaborations. Such collaborations are necessarily woven around the concept of web conferencing that enables collaborations at micro, meso and macro levels and bridges spatial and temporal differences.

One of the latest state-of-the-art tools that enable organization wide web conferencing is TurboMeeting 500. It ensures secure collaboration and a reliable connectivity. TurboMeeting 500 supports a maximum capacity of 20 meeting rooms with up to 100 concurrent users. However the default capacity has been set at 5 meeting rooms and 20 concurrent users. View-only without download feature, chat and file transfer facility makes TurboMeeting-500 ideally suitable for web conferencing needs of small and medium size organizations.

It supports 10/100MB Ethernet networks and involves an installation procedure that is a breeze. With 9”x6”x1.4” dimensions and 2.4 lbs weight it is quite compact too.

With TurboMeeting-500, several teams at different locations can interact in instantaneous net meetings without any constraint on downloads or for that matter on any security issue and thereby produce a synergy that is the hallmark of resourceful collaboration.

Secure web conferencing - the need of the hour

Web conferencing has ensured a cost effective and hassle free interaction medium for business houses. However, flow of confidential company information over a medium that is vulnerable to hackers and rivals has raised certain pertinent security issues.

At the same time the rapidly evolving technology has ensured numerous ways in which companies can protect data while retaining the cost-cutting and freedom offered by Web conferencing. During a Web conferencing session, data is stored temporarily on a shared Internet server. The main risk of Web conferencing involves the possibility that this data may leak beyond the intended realm of the conference.

Measures such as non-persistent data flow, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption, and intrusion control are essential for protecting data that is transmitted during a secure webconference. This three-pronged approach appreciably minimizes the chances of an information leak.

Various vendors are making persistent efforts to address security concerns. Among them Rhub’s of TurboMeeting products is credited with providing one of the most advanced secure web conferencing mechanism by ensuring access security, that is, preventing unauthorized access, by way of an affordable on-premise solution.