[tlug] [ot] CUseeme, Solaris, MeetingPoint, 'Doze

[Peter Evans <peter@example.com>]

Sorry to be way off-topic, but I'm in search of computer expertise and 
there's surely nowhere better to look than among Linux users.

Some years ago, my institution paid a lot for CUseeme. (It's a 
videoconferencing program created for academic purposes but that later 
was employed for -- well, just say the name to yourself a couple of 
times and ask yourself what's at the wobbly/stiff/cutting edge of all 
net technologies.) This looked as if it might work on the ancient Win98 
machines that everybody had, but the latter weren't allocated fixed IP 
numbers so it couldn't be used. Now we're going to get XP machines -- 
don't blame me; I wasn't consulted, and it won't take me long for me to 
zap XP or (if this is impossible for some reason) to return the machine 
in disgust -- and the possibility of fixed IP addresses. The 
increasingly proprietorial outfit that flogs the once-freeware CUseeme 
in Japan says that our old version won't run under XP. No reason is 
given and I suspect there's some simple workaround. Meanwhile, 
MeetingPoint (or whatever CUseeme server is called this week) is 
running, unused, on a Solaris machine. Anyway, a colleague and I 
couldn't get CUseeme to work properly on a 2k, Win98, or XP machine with 
known IP number (I could get video on 2k, but no sound), and gave up in 
boredom. But then we really don't know what the *%$# we're doing (we're 
mere teachers, not techies). Still, through no fault of our own, we're 
the two at the head of a subcommittee that is supposed to do something, 
anything, with this white elephant.

The kosher way to do this would be to pay another massive wodge of money 
to the CUseeme outfit, which would flog us upgrades and one way or 
another avoid providing any support. (Good money after bad.) What I 
personally would like to do is just throw all this stuff into a 
landfill: few things interest me less than staring at a talking head who 
I must remember is staring at my talking head (whose nose I'm dying to 
pick) -- but that's not possible. So, the second choice: my hunch is 
that one savvy and disinterested person plus a bit of ingenuity might be 
able to fix all this, or at least say what is and what is not necessary. 
We don't have a budget for outsider expertise, but I personally am 
willing to stump up a bit for it.

We're in central Tokyo. (Further details offlist, to protect us from the 
wrath of Taro Q. Taxpayer.) I expect to have "my own" XP machine within 
a few days. And the Linux angle to this is that once this is all up and 
working, I'm not supposed to say "screw videoconferencing" (much though 
I'd like to do so) but instead should be able to do it. And I don't see 
why I should I should enrich Microsoft in the process: if I'm going to 
do this, I'd rather have it running on the SuSE 8.2 I'm using on this 
machine now or the Debian and/or SuSE or whatever with which I intend to 
replace XP on the new notebook.

Apologies to all those who aren't interested for the waste of bytes. I 
imagine that any reply would have to be offlist.