Tries to do everything (Microsoft Netmeeting 3)

Name: thanatoszane

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Product:	Microsoft Netmeeting 3
Date:	09/12/01 (700 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Pretty much free, Video conferences, file transfer and loads of other features

Disadvantages: Not as good as a single specialist progra,

Microsoft NetMeeting is a nifty little package that almost everyone using Windows should already have installed on their PC. It comes with many versions of Windows, with Office, and as an extra ‘freebie’ with most modems and web cams.

So, what is it? Well, it’s conferencing software that lets you communicate with people over the network or Internet. You can have text based chat, or videoconferencing, a shared whiteboard, shared desktops and file transfer features.

It’s good for chatting with friends using either the text based chat of a microphone plugged into your PC. You can set up videoconferencing with a web cam but if you’re over dialup it is quite slow and also relatively low quality. There isn’t much problem with the sound though.

Setting up the software is quite easy, as is connecting to someone. If they’re listed in one of the directories all you do is search for their name and double click on it. If they’re not listed, then you’ll need to know their IP address. which they can find by going to ‘Help > About Windows NetMeeting’ - if they email this to you or tell you it in another instant messaging program then you can just type it into the box at the top of the NetMeeting window and hit enter. They receive a call, which they must accept, and you’re away.

Personally, I would recommend using this method, cumbersome as it may be, because if you are listed in the directory then the chances are you will get lots of calls from complete nutcases wanting to send you porn, or chat you up, or send you viruses. In my experience NetMeeting is even worse than ICQ for that kind of thing, and that’s saying something! Keep yourself out of the directory and just tell your friends your IP address each time you want to chat - it’s less hassle. Remember though that most peoples IPs change each time they go online.

You can have more than tw
o people in a conference at any time, so it is suitable for a group of friends getting together.

I would not recommend that you leave NetMeeting running when you aren’t using it - especially if you have ‘Automatically Accept Incoming Calls’ selected, even more so if you have a webcam left on! Imagine if someone called you when you were checking your email after just getting out of the bath...

NetMeeting isn’t just for fun though - it can be a great tool for work. It’s often used for training purposes, and this is where the file transfer, whiteboard and shared desktop become really useful.

Lets say you want to train a whole load of people in a software application. Get them all into a conference call - probably over telephone rather than NetMeeting unless everyone has the required hardware, then bring everyone into a NetMeeting call. The trainer shares his desktop with the students so they can watch what he is doing.

Notes can be made on the shared whiteboard (which is really just a shared copy of MS Paint) and people can ask questions using the chat feature. This is quite nice as you can address your remarks either to one person or the whole group.

Once the session is over, any training documents, power point presentations, or whatever, can be sent to each person in the meeting using the file transfer program.

NetMeeting isn’t just passive - when you share the desktop you can give control to the other person, or people, in the meeting. Only one person can have control at a time, naturally, but whoever has control can forward it to another person with just a couple of clicks of the mouse.

If you’re worried about giving control to someone else, then don’t be - re-gaining control is easy to do - just double click your own mouse.

You can share either your whole desktop or just some specific applications. This stops your privacy from being vi
olated by whoever has control of your computer - they can only snoop on the things you specify.

I use NetMeeting in this way to provide tech support. Most people have it, and it’s easy to use.

There are drawbacks though. The default installation of NetMeeting doesn’t include the sharing component - so to share, they have to first enable the feature, install some bits, and re-boot. This takes ages.

Secondly, for conference calls, every time someone connects, the performance of the host PC is degraded slightly, and everything gets a little bit slower. Usually, at around 25 connections the host PC just gives up in disgust and falls over.

Thirdly, sharing a desktop over a 56K modem is NOT recommended, it takes about 20 seconds from a dialogue box being visible on the host PC to it showing on your shared version of the screen. You can improve speed slightly by having the host turn off any background images or whatever, but it’s a huge hassle.

Personally, I think for the file transfer and shared desktop features there are other, better programs. PC Anywhere and Carbon Copy being two of them. These are both slightly more secure, if harder to set up, but the features they offer are more comprehensive.

The same goes for the chat features - they're nice, but a specialised Instant Messaging or mIRC program is probably better - it's easier to contact people, and things like ICQ support offline messages. NetMeeting is good, but it isn't meant as a full blown IM program.

Still, NetMeeting is free and easy to obtain. The video conferencing and 'phone' features are pretty good. For international calls it's very handy, as you only pay your internet connection fee rather than the price of phoning another country, although you do have to put up with the reduced sound quality.

NetMeeting has it's uses, and considering it's effectively free, can you really c
omplain?

Summary: