Help: I thought HEARME was going away??

Subject: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 01:53 AM

I was informed that Hearme would be shutting down in December... But I just hit my Hearme room on my web page... it asked me to up-date a plugin but it seems to be working fine...

Anybody got more skinny?

;-)

Subject: RE: Help: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 03:02 AM

The last I heard was that Hearme are ending the service on 11th December.

Jon

Subject: RE: Help: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: MMario
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 09:58 AM

ditto - they have pulled all their web pages on the product as far as I can tell, and support has been more or less non-existant for weeks

Subject: RE: Help: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 12:57 PM

and whatever they are 'replacing' it with seems to be owned/connected with Eudora email!!...weird...I like Eudora, but don't see the sense of it..(they say the 'new' program will allow full-duplex...which could concievably allow 'singalongs'...but with a limit of 8...so...*shrug*)...maybe it would be a way for a couple of folks to practice singing together...or just for small groups..(and MAYBE it is some sort of marketing trick with ads and spyware and cookies and invasion of privacy...)

Subject: RE: Help: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 12:57 PM

Ahh... the 11th... see... I hadn't heard that part... ta!

Subject: RE: Help: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 09:15 PM

well...I actually TALKED with a HearMe rep today...I downloaded the necessary plug-in to get to their new demo/help forum...The HearMe folks are serious ...their invention is now EXPENSIVE, but fancy. What he told me is that they now licence a full-duplex HearMe to companies, (or whomever) for $10,000 UP depending on how many people you want to allow in...(the $10,000 gets you 20 people)...says they warned everyone this was coming...*grin*...so...them days is gone forever.

The interesting part is, I asked him about PalTalk, and he says that while HearMe can cope with 'almost' all firewalls, PalTalk has some serious issues with firewalls....and that 'some' ISPs have a firewall built into their configuration!! This may be what PalTalk means when they say "if this doesn't work, you may not be able to use PalTalk from your machine/location".... I will call my ISP (StarPower/Erols) east coast USA..(BIG company)and see if they have any ideas.

In the meantime, I seem to be shut out...and I suspect that others are having the same experience.

Now, there IS a 'freeish' version of the HearMe program that functions like an audio version of ICQ, but the rights to this were bought by Eudora Email, and requires you to have Eudora 5...but it is of little use to Mudcatters as a group....

so...technology marches on...maybe soon

Subject: RE: Help: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 09:25 PM

Thanks for the update Bill, I was aware of some of and had guessed at other parts of Hearme's policies and this confirms my feelings.

As for the Paltalk problem, please let us know what your ISP has to say on the matter.

Jon.

Subject: RE: Help: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: Uncle Jaque
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 11:31 PM

I have been experimenting with the HearMe/EUDORA 5 "new" system for a few days now. It seems that you have to have Eudora 5.0.3 installed (a free download) but the audio program (a seperate download) only works on the "sponsored" mode (not on "Light" or "Paid")- althought the ad panel is stationary (much less distracting than those flashing/jumping around animated -and very annoying- windows featured on some "adware" programs). It also only works with MS INTERNET EXPLORER 5 or certain Netscape browsers - but NOT the newest version 6. There is a feature on Eudora where you can record an audio message and attach it to an e-mail, but i don't see how this would do much for us. When I activate the VoiceContact program, I get a page with all this big-deal commercial promotion, and no way that I can tell to get on to or set up a working-class chat room or song circle. Final analysis: If this works at all, I have yet, despite considerable putzing around with it, to figure out how. It is, as near as this commoner can determine, much more of a pain in the arse than it is worth. Hopefully, something better will come along. Until then I will put up with the skippy, scratchy, fuzzy one-at-a-time sound on PalTalk. It's better than nothing - which is apparantly what Hearme has left us with.

Subject: RE: Help: I thought HEARME was going away??
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 03:47 AM

UJ, PalTalk may be fussy over configurations but thegeneral feeling is thatwhen everythingis setup correctly, PalTalk provides better sound quality than hearme did.

I am still not sure what to think about the Full-Duplex idea but I am skeptical. It may allow "hands free talk" (as PalTalk does on a one to one) but our main use for this would be to allow 2 or more people in different locations to sing together and I do not believe that communication speeds are anywhere near quick enough to allow for this and I also feel that even if they are, the slightest bit of network congestion would throw everything out of sync.

I would love to see the day when we can have real time sessions of that nature but I fear that we are still along way off (assuming it will be possible -what would an acceptable time delay be between participants - how many milliseconds?)

Jon