Introducing CallWave’s Fuze HD Web Collaboration Tool
Company: CallWave
http://www.fuzemeeting.com/fuzemeeting/home

Given all the hype surrounding the term “high-definition,” along with the current proliferation of HD content-HD TV, HD Blu-Ray discs, HD camcorders, even HD radio-one might be forgiven for being more than a little jaded when a new HD service is announced. But it’s not every day that high-definition Web conferencing comes along, so the announcement of an HD-capable Web collaboration tool at MacWorld this past January caused us at MyMac.com to sit up and take notice.

The FUZE high-definition collaboration and conferencing tool, from CallWave, is completely Web-based and requires only a Web browser capable of running Flash 9 or higher. I’ll get to the complete hardware and software requirements later, but for the moment suffice to say you’ll be good to go with OS X 10.3 or higher and a G4 processor, although for HD video you’ll get best results with a more recent Intel Mac.

One of the advantages of Fuze, as compared to other Web conferencing options, is that as long as you have the Flash plug-in, there’s absolutely nothing else to download or install-whether you’re simply participating in or actually hosting the conference. And Fuze participants can actually “fetch” additional attendees by contacting them online with a link that takes them directly into the meeting. But what really makes Fuze stand out is the option to upload not just the usual PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets and PDFs, but high-resolution photos and even HD video.

I was recently given a demonstration of Fuze’s HD capabilities by Greg Saiz, Director of Product Marketing, and the demo did not disappoint. After showing how even the graphics embedded in a simple PowerPoint file could be scaled to a very high magnification via Fuze and still look crisp and clear, Greg uploaded a 20MB hi-res JPEG image of an automobile engine along with a few minutes of HD footage showing a private jet in flight. Both were remarkably sharp, and the image remained so even after filling the screen by isolating only the smallest detail. Both video and images can be marked up by participants, and the annotations can be saved for later review.

Those of us who tend to become concerned over issues of file size vs. available bandwidth can relax-the Fuze folks have you covered. Their service utilizes a “man in the middle” concept when it comes to managing large files, in that the Fuze servers handle the distribution of the content to each participant once it’s uploaded. This keeps the “host” of the meeting from getting bogged down, regardless of the speed of his or her Internet connection. Along these lines, a very thoughtful feature of the Fuze interface is a series of progress bars at the upper left, one representing each participant. When new content is uploaded to the Fuze service, the bars update to reflect how much of the file has been “pushed” to the participant. That way everyone can see at a glance who’s received the complete file and who’s still waiting, which goes a long way towards eliminating those annoying “Wait, wait, I didn’t get the file yet” outbursts that punctuate your everyday average Web conference.

Now, as if all this wasn’t enough, another element of the Fuze product announcement at MacWorld involved smartphone integration, which will allow iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile users to not only participate in the conference, but fetch attendees, manage meetings and also view HD video and images. These capabilities were demoed on the iPhone at the aforementioned MacWorld Expo, and CallWave hopes to have all these features available to mobile users sometime in Q2 2009. There is an iPhone client already available at the App store that already offers some of these options; you can download the application for free once you’ve signed up for a Fuse account.

Pricing has not been firmly established as of this writing, but currently you can create a Fuze account with unlimited meetings for $29/month, or $279 annually. CallWave plans to offer per-minute pricing as well, making Fuze an extremely competitive option when compared with more well-known services like WebEx GoToMeeting, or Acrobat Connect neither of which offer some of the features that Fuze provides.

I noted earlier that the Mac hardware requirements were pretty basic in terms of participating in a Fuze conference. Although the ideal configuration would be a current Intel-based Mac running version 10 of the Flash plug-in and the Web browser of your choice, you could participate even on a G3 or G4-based Mac running OS X 10.3 and Flash 9.0.151.0, which is still downloadable from Adobe’s Web site. Keep in mind, however, that while the basic conferencing features should work fine, attempting to view HD video would most likely be an exercise in frustration on anything older than a G5 desktop.

And while we’re on the subject of Macs, one of the questions I asked Greg was in regard to Fuze’s Mac support, specifically in terms of whether there were any “Windows-only” features, or options that performed much better for Internet Explorer users. As Mac owners, we’re often frustrated when we’re persuaded to subscribe to a particular Web-based service only to discover that certain parts of don’t actually work on a Mac, or that Mac compatibility is either promised for “a later date” or not planned at all. Greg assured me that a Fuse conference will function just as well on an iMac Intel Core 2 Duo running FireFox as it will on a Dell box running Windows XP SP 2 and Internet Explorer. In fact, he pointed out that one of the new features currently in the works is desktop sharing to the iPhone, which will be available to Mac users first before that option is rolled out to those participants on the “dark side.”

Based on the existing feature set of Fuze, in particular its HD capabilities and the improvements planned for the iPhone client software, I highly recommend that Mac-based workgroups who currently use services like WebEx or GoToMeeting, especially those that work with large images and/or hi-definition video, give Fuze a try. The way I see it, showing your clients high-definition graphics and video with Fuze can’t help but improve your image-in more ways that one.

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Bits and Pieces was a monthly column that featured a look at what the PC Press was writing about Apple. This week, we look back ten years (July 1996) and learn what PCWeek was saying, Apple at Comdex Chicago, and more. Written by Grand Cassiday. Read it HERE.

NEW Macworld PodCast. Click here to listen!

Chad Perry, new MyMac PodCast co-host, and Tim Robertson talk about the Mac Mini and the new iPod Shuffle!

Finally, a MUCH BETTER PODCAST!

Click here to listen.

15MB @ 30 Minutes.

I won’t try to talk about the SteveNote — Nemo has done such a good job of that already. Here are my random impressions and thoughts, as I spent the entire afternoon roaming the floor of the exhibit hall.

1. They’ve compressed the whole show in on hall in Moscone South. In previous years there were two halls, North and South. It gives the whole show the feel of a mideastern bazaar, not that I’ve been to one of those, with a dense, milling mob of booths and people all jammed into a half-size space. It creates excitement, and also makes it very hard to judge whether attendance is up, down, or what.

2. iPod accessories are occupying at least three times as much space as last year.

3. Bags are big. Bags for laptops, for iPods, for iMacs, you name it. I think I visited half a dozen bag vendors. What’s going on here?

4. The focus on things that are directly connected to Apple products is tighter than before. This is no longer a handy bazaar for anything that people who like Macs might also like.

5. Tiger is burning bright. I went and looked over shoulders a lot and got my hands on it a little. Spotlight is awesome, though I will also have to write a whole article about it when Tiger is released. Dashboard now has a whole lot more widgets than it did back at WWDC 2004, and looks much more interesting. And the eye candy is just, I don’t know what to say, fabulous. I don’t put down eye candy — it makes you like your computer. This is something that no one else understands as well as Apple does..

6. iLife 5 looks good. I cross-examined an Apple booth-weasel about whether I could use IPhoto to make a fancy KenBurnsified slide show and export it as a QuickTime movie, which could then be imported to, oh, iMoveie or KeyNote. The answer is, yes, of course.

7. iWorks looks pretty good too. Of course, having written Why I Hate Word Processors a while ago, I am going to have to go into Pages in some depth when I can get my hands on it. But I subjected it to an important test that AppleWorks failed: control of widows and orphans. Widows and orphans, you ask? Well, these are just cases where the first line of a paragraph gets isolated at the bottom of a page, or the last line gets isolated at the top. A decent word processor has to prevent this, and Pages passes the test. I also asked the booth-weasel whether Pages could handle big documents. He said they test it regularly on War and Peace, which I thought was a pretty darned good answer.

8. I found Andy Hertzfeld at the O’Reilly booth, and chatted with him about his new book, Revolution in the Valley. This book grew out of his terrific web site, folklore.org, where he has induced the people who know the great stories about the creation of the Macintosh to preserve them for others to read. And though the book is out, the web site goes on. Andy is still exactly the same great, interesting guy he always was, and everybody should buy his book. I did, and O’Reilly gave me 20% off on it and another book, plus a T-shirt for buying two books. I like O’Reilly a lot.

9. Before the fact, I went on record as not believing in either the Headless Mac or the Flash iPod. Well, as my father used to say, that is why they put erasers on pencils.

10. The Mac Mini may or may not sell a lot of units. I’m not dumb enough to try to predict that. But at an absolute minimum, it will get a lot of people to go into Apple retail stores to see it, and that is nothing but good. I put my hand on top of it at the booth, and it was not warm. I asked if it had a fan, and answer was yes, but it’s very quiet. I also asked if it had the same footprint as a Cube, with the height squished down; the booth-weasel thought the Cube footprint was 8×8 inches, while the Mini is 6.5×6.5. Even so, you can surely argue that this is The Cube Done Right, at $499.

11. The iPod Shuffle is a pretty smart product. When ThinkSecret leaked the basic idea, they did not know about the smart part. Because the question is, if you want it to be really cheap and tiny, you probably can’t have a display at all, so how do you pick songs? And as we now know, the answer is, You don’t. Hell, there’s only one or two hundred songs on the thing, play them all. Either shuffled or not. I think it’s brilliant, and at the strikingly low prices of $99 for 512MB and $149 for 1GB, Apple will take over the flash-player market in short order — after all, the others are selling 256MB for $179, mostly.

12. Once again, there are basically no flight sim games for OS X. All I saw was X-Plane, which is nice, but come on, only one? I don’t mean science-fiction games with imaginary spacecraft, I mean flight simulators with real aircraft. What’s the problem?

13. I’m an old guy, and you know what, there are a LOT of old guys at MacWorld. Not that the younger demographics aren’t there, but you know, there must be a market out there for stuff like Medicare Minder and Social Security Maximizer and Heart Medicine Tracker and suchlike. Just a little clue for the developers.

New version of GarageBand is announced. You can now create your own loops! Also 8-track recording and can record 4 live tracks.

New iDVD to support more formats. A new one step creation of DVDs. Now will support all formats. iLife 05 prices at $70, will be out 1.22.05

New iMovie will allow MPEG4 with Hi-Def editing.

A demo of the new Hi-Def Sony camera with the Mac

AppleWorks is no more, introducing iWork!

Keynote 2.0, Jobs says he uses it for everything. Major upgrade to the two-year-old program!

Demo of new word proccesor, Pages!

Pages will support PDF

Compatable with Microsoft Offie

Apple releases Mac Mini. New Macintosh at $499! 1.25GHz processor, 256MB RAM, 40GB HD. Cac order one with more memory and HD for $599

Mac Mini- you have to buy your own keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Just a headless Macintosh. VERY small. Abou the size of a PaperBack book

Plays DVDs, CD’s, slot-loading. Ethernet, USB, and a modem. VGA output to get PC switchers so that they can use a PC monitor VERY nice!

Apple will ship Mac Mini on January 22

Now talking about the iPod!

New iPod, the iPod Shuffle. Flashcard based plaer. Weighs less than 1 ounce, about the same as four quarters. Has LED. Shuffles your music, or play an album. USB 2 connector.

512MB = $99 (120 Songs)
1GB = $149 (240 Songs)

John Mayer onstage to entertain…

First time I’ve ever gone to MacWorld the day before The Day. That’s because it’s the first time I have an official reason to be there, with my Media Representative Badge and all. Writing for MyMac.com does have its privileges. Before, I have always just traveled on a tourist visa, not to mention my tourist MasterCard, ho ho.

But this time, instead of watching the Stevenote while crammed into the Apple employees’ cafeteria (when I was one) or on my laptop at the kitchen table, I will get to enter The Presence in the auditorium at the Moscone Center. And at the end, His Steveness will tell us all to look under our seats, and there we will find … (drum roll) … a G5 Stainless Steel PowerBook! That ThinkSecret.com never even heard about!

Well a man can dream, can’t he?

Of course, to be sure to get into the Stevenote, I have to be there, says Nemo, by 8:00 AM. And stand on the porch outside the auditorium in whatever weather San Francisco provides at that time. So far, I’ve been to SF twice during the predicted Perfect Mother of All Pacific Winter Storms, and it has not rained or hailed or snowed or hit me with meteorites. So, fingers crossed for The Day.

But to be there by 8:00, I’ll have to catch the 6:07 train from Palo Alto, so I will end this here.

It is really hard to believe, but it was five years ago this week that Steve Jobs first showed the next generation of the Mac OS, Mac OS X. This week’s archive of the week goes back and recounts my day at Macworld Expo, January 5, 2000, and features a picture of myself with Steve Wozniak!

Read about the day here. Also here and here for other adventures at MWSF 2000

Having accepted the invitation to join this blog, I suppose I’d better write something. But what do you write when you’re allowed to write anything at all? That intimidated me for a few minutes, but not having anything in particular to write about has never stopped me before, so why should it now?

The thing is, I’m in rather august company, so I feel I have to lift my act at least a little. However, it’s morning here, and I’m not at my best in the morning. That’s my excuse today anyway.

All this talk of snow and icicle lights makes me feel underprivileged. Australia doesn’t have snow at Christmas (not much of Australia has snow any time). Everything is hot hot hot. And we don’t have the bewildering variety of lights Beth describes. I’m just going to string those pretty little round ‘fairy lights’ (that’s what I call them anyway) on the real tree on our front verandah. All they can do is blink … in unison. Sometimes they forget to do that and all we get is a steady light. They’re pretty old, so I guess a steady light is quite an achievement.

Usually I don’t put any other decorations on the tree. When it comes to Christmas trees (but nothing else) I’m a minimalist.

I haven’t put the lights on the tree yet. To tell you the truth I don’t know where they are. This happens every year. They’re probably in one of the multitude of boxes under the house, but not the one that says ‘Christmas decorations’. I’ve been fooled by the label many times before. Hopefully we’ll find the lights before Christmas Eve. We’ve told ourselves it’s a family tradition to put the lights on the tree on Christmas Eve – before we go to midnight Mass at the wonderful nominally-Catholic but really non-denominational St Mary’s church at South Brisbane.

Our other family Christmas tradition is to leave the Christmas cards strung up in our living room till December the following year.

It’s good to have a tradition or two, don’t you think?