Wow, Long Time No See!

Okay, I'm embarrassed. I've been so into my own general blog, my education-in-second-life blog, and my classroom blog, not to mention my podcast and my day-to-day-teaching, that I've sorely neglected this poor orphanblog.

Well, I have to say that part of it problem is that I haven't really seen very interesting newsnotable items. This morning, however, via vcinsight (itself a quirky little site dedicated to IVC and sponsored by the "big guys," I discovered a most interesting post about Sony's new desktop "Walkman for Videoconferencing" system. Read about that, and whilst reading, note the new theme of IPM (IP Monitoring) that seems to run through the site's posts. For network-connected folks, it seems that QOS (Quality of Service) settings are (duh, slapping my forehead) absolutely key to performance. Perhaps a little intro to QOS might help. I'll look for that soon. Meanwhile, perhaps the best tack to take is to bake a batch of yummy chocolate chip cookies for your system administrator, or perhaps gift him/her a nice bottle of scotch :)

For those watching trends in the high end players, you can also read at vcinsight.com about Tandberg's purchase of Codian. That's significant for a number of reasons. I'm sure the Calista-rooted Codian folks are feeling quit pumped about the sale of their project to Tandberg. This team of developers may now move on to the next big project. Wonder what it will be...

I'm rambling. See what you get when you make me feel guilty?

Cheers!

Top 10 Videoconferencing Systems of the Year

Ignore this post if you're only interested in desktop solutions, but even if you are you might want to check out this article at eMediaWire that summarizes the recent awards bequeathed by vcinsight newsletter to the top 10 improvements in high-end IVC. This article, and the one it references, provides a very quick-and-dirty summary of the rapid improvements in the field. They're both worth a look!

Cheers from cold Nashville to cold wherever-you-are!

Digital Lifestyle Interactive Videoconferencing Article

Just across my desktop today, an interesting and well-done little post that wonders aloud, "Do I need to upgrade my ISP in order to do desktop videoconferencing? Give it a read.