Videoconferencing with GnomeMeeting
| GnomeMeeting is an Internet videoconferencing application that provides two-way voice and pictures over the Internet by using the H.323 protocol for IP telephony (also known as Voice over IP [VoIP]). It is an application similar to Microsoft NetMeeting and is provided with Fedora Core as the default videoconferencing client. Before you can take full advantage of the phone and videoconferencing capabilities of GnomeMeeting, you must configure a full-duplex-capable sound card and video device (see Chapter 10, "Multimedia Applications") as well as a camera. GnomeMeeting is found in the Internet menu as Videoconferencing; you click on the icon to launch it. When you start the GnomeMeeting application for the first time, a configuration wizard (called a "druid") runs and you are greeted by the first of four configuration screens. You simply enter your name, email address, and location and select your connection type. The settings for your audio and video devices are automatically detected; you can view them by selecting the Preferences item from the Edit menu. Figure 8.22 shows GnomeMeeting in action, looking at a list of users listed with the server who are currently online. Figure 8.22. GnomeMeeting is surprisingly simple to use. A video source is not necessary; a static picture can be used as well. When you have GnomeMeeting running, you must register (from within GnomeMeeting) with the server at http://ils.seconix.com/ to enable conferencing; GnomeMeeting does this automatically for you if you told it to do so during the initial configuration. GnomeMeeting is capable of communicating with Microsoft NetMeeting; you should ask NetMeeting users to register at http://ils.seconix.com/ so that you can see them because NetMeeting can see only other NetMeeting users. You can find an informative FAQ at the GnomeMeeting home page at http://www.gnomemeeting.org/ that you should read in full before using GnomeMeeting. Also, an excellent article about VoIP is at http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/430/. Note If you frequently use VoIP applications such as GnomeMeeting, you will tire of repetitively typing in long IP addresses to make connections. To avoid this hassle, you can use a "gatekeeper"similar in purpose to a DNS serverto translate names into IP addresses. OpenH323 Gatekeeper is one such popular gatekeeper application. It is not provided with Fedora, but you can obtain it from http://www.gnugk.org/.
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EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 362