Club meetings using Zoom

[John Kelsey]

Hi
Next week our club will attempt our first virtual meeting using Zoom. We’re mostly old duffers new to all this, how can it work? Well, last week we began holding an on-line morning coffee hour for any members who can manage to download the software and click in. The purpose is to learn how this works, as well as purely enjoying on-line fellowship.

We started with two of us, then five, and for the last two coffee hours we’ve had 15+ members on line chewing the fat together. Yesterday we had two officers from a nearby club join us, today we’re expecting more of their members as well.

we’ve learned that we can do show-And-tell, shop tours using iPhones, tips n tricks. We can also share videos and still photos from any one computer to the whole group. We’re getting up to where we can do remote demos, step by step.

This looks like the world we’ll have to live with for a while.

 

[Mike Adams]

You might want to explore an alternative chat system.

News coverage:
https://betanews.com/2020/04/01/zoom-security-vulnerability-steal-windows-login-credentials/

https://www.securitynewspaper.com/2020/03/27/zoom-is-selling-its-users-conference-data-to-facebook/

https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/01/zoom-doom/

Alternatives:

Of the systems listed in the below link, I can vouch for WebEx from Cisco (the network hardware company). It's stable and can record video.
https://www.ranzware.com/2020/04/02/the-best-alternatives-to-zoom-for-videoconferencing/

 

[Karl Loeblein]

You might want to explore an alternative chat system.

News coverage:
https://betanews.com/2020/04/01/zoom-security-vulnerability-steal-windows-login-credentials/

https://www.securitynewspaper.com/2020/03/27/zoom-is-selling-its-users-conference-data-to-facebook/

https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/01/zoom-doom/

Alternatives:

Of the systems listed in the below link, I can vouch for WebEx from Cisco (the network hardware company). It's stable and can record video.
https://www.ranzware.com/2020/04/02/the-best-alternatives-to-zoom-for-videoconferencing/

For what it's worth:

Zoom issues an apology for privacy and security issues, will enact a feature freeze to focus on fixes

https://betanews.com/2020/04/02/zoom-statement-apology/

 

[John Kelsey]

I don't know which software is best, my own limited research suggests they all have problems of one sort or another. I chose Zoom for several reasons:
-- it's easy to use and lots of people, *including my grandchildren*, use and like it.
-- it gets along well with browsers, doesn't seem to cause problems in my computers.
-- it works for our club purposes, we've been able to bring older club members with little computer savvy into our morning coffee hours. .

Re the issues you mention, I dunno. Speaking strictly for myself not my club, the Facebook issue amounts to sharing tracking info, just like every other commercial website, and if it brings me better ads for tools and wood, I'm ok with that. The security issue arises when companies share spreadsheets and sensitive business information in a meeting that Zoom records. I don't intend to record meetings, though you might, anyway I don't see much sensitive business info being shared in our club show-and-tell.

If anyone amongst us has deeper knowledge or a reason to choose another system, please do share it. It looks like we will be here for a while yet.

 

[olaf Vogel]

For the last 5 years, I've worked remotely. In one company, I hardly ever met my coworks in person.
Some meetings had 30 people on board.

All meetings were vie Google Hangouts. It works well on Mac, PC and Mobile
It needs no programs to be installed other than Google Chrome.

I;ve used Zoom, but I uninstall it after every use, and then still dont trust it

 

[John Torchick]

FWIW, there was some negative on the news today about ZOOM.

 

[Dave Landers]

Any software (or for that matter any company, food, activity, etc...) that gets a lot of attention is going to attract a lot of press, and negative press sells more "clicks". You can always find something wrong with anything,

I'm a software engineer. If you think you have a bug-free program, then you are wrong - you just haven't tested it enough to find the bugs.

I work for a software company with what I consider a reasonable yet often paranoid IT security dept. We use Zoom every day (even before we were all working from home).

The remote demonstration community has mostly adopted zoom for really good reasons: t is easy for "normal people" to use, yet powerful enough do host a demonstration to a large group. It works quite well for the interactive part of demo. And it works consistently across a wide range of devices and internet speeds. It's probably not the only platform that could be used, but has proven to work well for remote demonstrations.

Demonstrators are sharing their experiences and setups, and with more use are learning about the settings that they can use (there are a lot of settings) to have a better and more secure demo experience.

 

[AlanZ]

Dave, you echo my sentiments. Most remote demonstrators use Zoom for some very good reasons. Two weeks ago, I taught a session on how to configure Zoom for group meetings. Lots of options, lots of very good questions from the 100 participants.

 

[John Kelsey]

Today’s news had a lot of scaremongering about Zoom-bombing. To allay our Lancaster club members’ concerns, at our meetings only the host can share the screen. Members with photos to screen-share, email them to the host in advance. For videos, it’s simplest to post them to you-tube and email a link to the host. This default setting completely prevents zoom=bombing. Members can talk and take questions during the screen-share.

This does not affect collection tours, shop tours and shop demos shot live from a member’s smartphone.

 

[John Kelsey]

Dave, you echo my sentiments. Most remote demonstrators use Zoom for some very good reasons. Two weeks ago, I taught a session on how to configure Zoom for group meetings. Lots of options, lots of very good questions from the 100 participants.

Alan would you please share your info about configuring Zoom? No needs for the rest of us to reinvent the wheel here.

 

[Bill T Tucker]

Our Nashville club is looking forward to Alan's demo next week using Zoom. Should be fun and for some of us, a bit of a challenge (still have daily fight with tv remote). Thank you everyone for leading the way on this.

 

[AlanZ]

Alan would you please share your info about configuring Zoom? No needs for the rest of us to reinvent the wheel here.

John,

Craig Timmerman made notes about the configuration items I showed during my webinar. He added some notes of his own. I will see if he will post them here.

 

[AlanZ]

John, I see that you registered at Lucid. Craig's revised doc is at www.lucidwoodturners.com/docs.ashx?id=614619

 

[AlanZ]

Note that Craig's document has not yet added the new Zoom restrictions that make all meetings require a password, and also enables waiting rooms.

 

[John Kelsey]

Thanks Alan. Craig has incorporated some of the new Zoom stuff, but not all. We really could use an up to date set of protocols shared here for everyone.

Re zoombombing and screen sharing. We schedule the meeting with screen sharing disabled, then during the meeting a member has a video to share the host can change the setting to allow it. The host also can stop the share if necessary. We experimented with all of this today during our Lancaster Woodturners morning coffee hour.

We are also using the Zoom waiting room and password, they both seem to work well, though the host does need to keep an eye on the participant screen to admit members from the waiting room. The host also can text-chat with anyone in the waiting room before admitting them, in case he doesn't recognize the person.

 

[Chris Edwards]

Alan, I believe you are doing the Tennessee Virtual meeting tomorrow. I've received two emails, one from you and one from the club.

The club assumes a start time of 7:00pm CST. You email states 7:00 EST.

 

[Chris Edwards]

I got a club email stating a start time of 6:00pm CST, thanks

 

[Chris Edwards]

Great virtual presentation tonight for the Tennessee Association of Woodturners.

Thank You Lauren and Alan (AlanZ).

 

[AlanZ]

Chris,

Lauren and I enjoyed presenting to your group. Having the Zoom session open for about an hour before the demo, gave us a chance to be sociable with those who joined early. Great fun.

 

[Mike Adams]

I don't know which software is best, my own limited research suggests they all have problems of one sort or another. I chose Zoom for several reasons:
-- it's easy to use and lots of people, *including my grandchildren*, use and like it.
-- it gets along well with browsers, doesn't seem to cause problems in my computers.
-- it works for our club purposes, we've been able to bring older club members with little computer savvy into our morning coffee hours. .

Re the issues you mention, I dunno. Speaking strictly for myself not my club, the Facebook issue amounts to sharing tracking info, just like every other commercial website, and if it brings me better ads for tools and wood, I'm ok with that. The security issue arises when companies share spreadsheets and sensitive business information in a meeting that Zoom records. I don't intend to record meetings, though you might, anyway I don't see much sensitive business info being shared in our club show-and-tell.

If anyone amongst us has deeper knowledge or a reason to choose another system, please do share it. It looks like we will be here for a while yet.

Hi John,

Try WebEx. Their free version has some time limitations, but they aren't selling your data to anyone.

https://www.webex.com/