Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint

Subject: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 10:05 PM

I've just registed a chat room at Telcopoint.com where they use the Hearme program, from what I can tell. I do not have it set up on my page at my website, yet, but wanted to let you all know it looks as though we may have an alternative to PalTalk. Other than that I know nothing about this, yet.

As soon as they email me back about how to load it onto my page I will post it here and we can try it out. It says it is free, I can have up to 5 rooms and up to 50 users per room. This might be something Max will want to look into. The only downer I noticed in scanning the pages was they want $500 per month for the ability to bounce the rotten apples. I think I can get around this on my website by keeping it private, though. We'll see.

Anyone who knows anything about this please let me know. I don't care if it stays on my site, I just wanted to give us a chance to try it.

Thanks,

kat

I should have done a search. We have seen this before,
but I guess none of us ever tried it.
Here's a link to the previous thread. Sorry.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 11:33 PM

Yes, kat, it has been mentioned here before. When it first came out, I (and I thought you) tried to set it up with no success. If I remember correctly, there were problems with their initial set up and they had to start again. I think it did crop up in conversation again here but I can't remember the outcome.

I would doubt that a maximum of 50 simultaneous users (between the 5 possible rooms) would be a problem with Mudcat - I would guess the highest we have hit so far with soley Mudcat participants would be in the Concert room at maybe about 30.

I think it is unlikely that there will be any need to worry about admin controls (although it is nice to have them) if the web pages are kept private. Although I did welcome the oppertunities PalTalk offered with that sort of control to welcome strangers in and indeed meet new people both ways, the fact of the matter is we operated Hearme which had no such controls for quite a while and I can't remember getting any problems with unwelcome intruders by giving the links here.

One possible worry related to that would be whereas with Hearme, I could (but never needed to) relocate the page just by uploading a new version elsewhere, I have a feeling this system requires the registration of individual web pages on their system and I'm not sure what that involves when changes are needed later.

I guess that bottom line is that it does use the Hearme Technology which has worked for us before and it's free - it has to be worth another look.

Jon

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 11:45 PM

Thanks, Jon. I think you are right about the registration being on their site and possible problems with moving it, but, tonight, at least, I had no problems with registration, just waiting to see how to load it onto my page. If it seems to work well, I would hope Max might be able to take a look and set one up here, when he has the time.

kat

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 12:09 AM

Okay. I did some more looking and found a few others which look promising, esp. the first one:

CHATSPACE it's free and allows up to 100 users at the same time.

HearMe for ICQ

Info on VoiceContact by HearMe - may be out of date

Excite's new Chat with Voice

Voice Chat - looks interesting

When I have more time, I will look at that first one. It looks simple to download and use. Any of you who have the time and inclination, please take a look and see what you think of any of these. I am disgusted by Paltalk's new popups; they even come up AFTER I've closed the program down!

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 12:16 AM

OOps, even though I could swear I saw voice capabilities on the first one, a closer look says maybe not.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 01:53 AM

kat, I took a look at all the sites you linked above. You're right, the first one seems not to have voice capability. HearMe for ICQ appears to either be a one on one chat or depend on invites for persons to get in, I'm not sure which. Excite chat looks like a possibility and, since I see they have chat (I assume text only at this point) for Macs, they might be more responsive to our Mac users than HearMe or Paltalk seem to have been. I agree that Voice Chat looks like it might have possibilities, but I wonder what they'd think of our reason for using it.

I've come to the conclusion it's time to look at the possibility of programming our own solution. I'm certainly not an expert programmer, but since I'm retired I guess I could at least take a little time to look at what it takes. Doubt that this would provide any short term solution, though.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 02:53 AM

I downloaded the Excite Chat software - a 2.1mB download! Their screen is very cluttered and, although I was able to create a private room, I don't know how to get anybody into it. I think, though, if a private room was created with a standard name, then anyone could enter it by clicking on the Private Room icon and entering the standard room name. I checked out some of the public rooms and got quite a shock! Although none of them had names implying anything about adult conversation, three in a row had pretty explicit discussions going on. Only one was voice enabled, but the sound quality seemed pretty good (and, no, it wasn't all 'oohs' and 'ahhhs' - lol).

Probably a few of us need to try it out at the same time and see what we can do. One thing I noticed about public rooms is that there seems to be a limit of 25 persons, then another room with the same subject is started. However, when you click on a crowded room name you're taken to the full room first, then get a dialog box asking if you want to just observe or go to the other room. Confusing, a little...

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 01 May 01 - 05:30 PM

Anything new on this? I'm REALLY eager for some sort of a successor to Paltalk, which I can't get on.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 May 01 - 05:39 PM

Dave, on my part, I've heard nothing from Telcopoint about how to get it onto my webpage. I will give them another day or so, then email them again for instructions.

As I said, I don't care which of us has it or makes available, I, too, would like to hear you, again, and have an alternative to Paltalk. Thanks for bringing it back up.

kat

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 12 May 01 - 06:49 PM

Any news yet?

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 May 01 - 06:59 PM

I've never received any reply from them. Will email them, again. Thanks for the reminder.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 12 May 01 - 08:45 PM

kat, if you've already registered a chat room, you must have received a user name and password from them. When you went to the page to register your chat room, the instruction was given there to create a link from your web page to Telco's hearme setup. What it involves is creating a link on your web page to

http://www.telcopoint.com/hearme/start_chat.phtml

I tried without setting up a chat room and I was successfully transferred, but received an error since ther is no chat room associated with my URL.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 12 May 01 - 09:37 PM

I went ahead and set up a chat room and was successfully transferred to it. I noticed that the text chat buttons are greyed out but that might be because I was the only one in the room so there was obviously nobody to whom to send messages. The room can be accessed at:

Ivan Bradley's Web Page

The link is in smaller print at the bottom of the song list from my Mudcat Concert. Note that this is just an experimental web page for me, so please, no comments on its design. :-)

Probably we need to get more than one person on at a time so we can check text chat features, sound quality, ease of use, etc. If anybody'd like to join me, PM me with a time and I'll try to make it.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 May 01 - 10:25 PM

Thanks, Ivan. I know I typed in all of the info, but never saw anything about how to link it to my page. i will take another look tomorrow. Maybe we could set a time, tomorrow, to check out your chat, when several of us might be able to meet in there? Whatever might be convenient for you, those of us who can, will be there?

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 13 May 01 - 03:58 PM

I'm opening the Hearme room on my web site and will be there till about 5:00pm Mudcat time if anyone can join me for testing. If nobody is able to make it, I'll open it again tonight at 10:00pm Mudcat time.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 13 May 01 - 04:00 PM

Forgot. The URL is:

Ivan Bradley's Web Page

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 13 May 01 - 05:03 PM

Caitrin was able to join me in Hearme, but neither of us was able to make ourselves heard in voice chat. At least the message board does become available when two or more people are in the room, but it's a bit cumbersome. I'll send an email to Telco support to see if they can give me any pointers. They have a 'Webmasters Forum,' but I notice the last entry on it is dated 2/12/01, so I'm a little leery of what sort of support to expect, but we'll see.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 13 May 01 - 10:07 PM

I'm there now, if anyone wants to join me. I'll stay for about 20 minutes or so. URL:

Ivan Bradley's Web Page

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: Bill D
Date: 14 May 01 - 11:46 AM

ummm...I deleted all the HearMe stuff from my PC after talking to the rep at the HearMe site and being told it was now an *expensive* toy for companies! How do we/I use it again?

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 14 May 01 - 01:40 PM

Bill, the software is all run from the Telco site now. I assume they place a cookie on your system, since my name seems to be persistent every time I log in. If you go to my web site (linked above) and click on the link to Hearme it will be 'installed' on your computer. However, I wouldn't be too hasty. As I stated above, Caitrin and I couldn't hear each other yesterday when we played with it, and I'm not too sure Telco hasn't orphaned the system while leaving it on their site. We'll see how soon I get any response from their support people. There seems to be no FAQ or any other kind of troubleshooting area to refer to, so, unless support contacts me, I have no idea what to do next. I do know that when I started Paltalk with Hearme already running, Hearme was controlling my sound, and I couldn't hear anyone on Paltalk. Conversely, when I started Paltalk first and then linked to Hearme, it gave me an error message about my sound being in use by another program and wouldn't connect me.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: dwditty
Date: 14 May 01 - 02:17 PM

Frankly, I do like Paltalk. I only wish it didn't "exclude" those who haven't been able to get it running for one reason or another. I'm a bit of a drifter, though, so I am just as likely to be in a gospel room as a blues, acoustic, folk, bluegrass, or country room. I've even hit some praise rooms and had fun. So the variety is appealing to me, even though some nights one room or another is a pain in the ass.

dw

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: dwditty
Date: 14 May 01 - 02:18 PM

BTW, I paid the $9 to turn off the pop-ups and banners for a year. That helps the enjoyment factor alot.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: Uncle Jaque
Date: 15 May 01 - 10:52 PM

Ivan: When I clicked on the "HearMe" link on your website, it crashed my browser (Netscape). Attempts to install the plugin were in vain. As of now I'd say it's a pretty long shot.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: IvanB
Date: 16 May 01 - 11:17 AM

Jaque, I tend to think so also. I emailed the Telco support people over the weekend but haven't heard back from them. And, as I noted above, looking at the age of the last post in their Webmasters' Forum (not a true forum, since the messages are only one way, from Telco), I don't believe their heart is in the free program.

I remember something about Netscape on their site, but not exactly what. And when I just tried to load the site to look it up, I received a long string of error messages from their server. Seems more and more ominous.

Subject: RE: Maybe new HEARME on Telcopoint
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 May 01 - 11:57 AM

I couldn't get anything except the text and I've never received anything back from their support people. I am going to dump it off of my hard drive.