Talky.io – Graves On SOHO Technology

New Skype Alternatives for Internet Broadcasting

Skype-alternatives I have an issue with “meta“ things. I blog, but I’m not engaged with the broader realm of bloggers. Blogging about blogging baffles me. Similarly, although I’ve been involved in the VUC since 2008, I’m not really engaged in the world of podcasters/internet broadcasters. I’m trying to work on this by sharing some of the techniques that I’ve discovered in doing VUC calls.

Last fall I was advising podcaster Mike Phillips with some issues of audio quality with respect to remote participants in podcasts. He appears to be a frequent contributor to the blog of the IAIB. It was there that I stumbled upon a post recommending Skype Alternatives For Internet Broadcasting.

This post implies that Skype is tremendously popular in this space, and yet there is some desire to seek out functional alternatives. The author, Andrew Zarian, offers the following list of alternatives; Google+ Hangouts, Zoom, Apple’s FaceTime and Cisco’s Jabber. All are certainly worthy of consideration.

Our DoorBot Has Been Decommissioned: Part 2 – How Fi is Our Wi?

March 13, 2014
Michael Graves
Video

PowerAP-N & DoorBot The problem with using a less than common Wifi AP is that a manufacturer can say, “we’ve never heard of that make/model” and hope that they are thus absolved of any possible requirement to help troubleshoot the situation. Not that the crew at DoorBot took that stance, but I’ve heard it plenty in prior situations.

It recently occurred to me that there was a way that I could confirm the state of our Wifi at the gate location where we had the DoorBot installed. I could stage a video call over Wifi using tools that I already had on-hand. If I could record a decent quality video call from a Wifi connected mobile device that location then it would prove that our Wi is way-Fi!

Staging this proved to be pretty simple. I pointed my Nexus 7 tablet at the school yard across the street, then established a video call using Talky.io. Talky.io is a free WebRTC-based service from &yet. It runs just fine in Chrome for Android.

Talky.io Offers A Great WebRTC Experience

October 7, 2013
Michael Graves
infrastructure

In the post-roll after last week’s VUC call I was able to invite Andy to join me in trying Talky a relatively new WebRTC– based video calling service from &Yet. The service is very interesting as is the company itself. I heartily recommend their blog.

TalkyIO-Screenshot

Andy and I had a good, lengthy chat using Talky. We came to the conclusion that it was the best experience with WebRTC that either of us has encountered. Admittedly, neither of us are WebRTC experts.

Talky supports screen sharing from within Chrome, given that a configuration change is made prior to starting the session. What it lacks is any kind of text chat.