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 | WebTrain will soon have streaming tutorials you can watch to learn how to define events, audio and microphone setup, optimize slide shows, etc. Until then, the text version of frequently asked questions is offered below. |
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| People in my meeting say my voice sounds buzzy. How can I correct this? |
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Sometimes a microphone is not suitable for the specific audio card installed on the PC. Your microphone may be generating feedback, causing a buzzing or ticking noise. Feedback is also sometimes caused when multiple PCs or other devices are plugged into the same power bar.
You can test how you sound by running the Microsoft Sound recorder ( Start | Programs | Accessories | Entertainment ), or by hosting a meeting and using the Record Voice feature. While hosting a meeting, give yourself the microphone (by clicking once in the first column beside your name in the participant grid), then toggle on the [Record Voice] button located at the bottom of the screen. Talk for a few seconds, then toggle it off. Next, click on the [Play Voice] button to hear what you sound like. If you hear buzzing, try lowering the recording volume by moving the slider control beneath the microphone icon.
Try using a different microphone if the problem persists. If you need to purchase a new microphone, we have found that the Labtec C-322 headset (about $20) works very well.
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| Some people say my voice is choppy, others say it's A-OK. What's the problem? |
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The people who are hearing your voice break up are likely experiencing Internet congestion. The person receiving the voice can remedied this by using the [Options] button to increase the playback buffer. This causes more voice packets to be stored before they are played, so playback is smoother. However, increasing the playback buffer increases the time lag between a word being spoken into one computer and heard on the other.
The host can also change the clients playback buffer setting. By right clicking on the participant's name in the participant grid, a pop-up menu appears with a option to set that person's playback buffer for them.
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| I would like to create recordings and distribute them. What should I do? |
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Create a WebTrain Account if you don't have one.
Purchase Time
Create MessageBoard
Next, you must Host a Meeting or Event. Before entering the room you must select the MessageBoard that you created to store the recording. Only the host of the meeting may record the meeting. When you toggle on the recorder you are prompted the title of the recording. After entering the title, your microphone is turned on and recording begins. Voice broadcasting (but not private 1:1 full duplex), webcam images, text chat, WhiteBoard activity including slides and screen-casting, are all recorded live, in the exact time line as recorded. When the recorder is toggled off, the Message Board will contain a new entry with the title previously entered.
When the recording is posted to the MessageBoard, it is posted as a private posting and is displayed only to MessageBoard members with ADMIN status. The message can be toggled to be a public posting so others can view and play the recording, and it can be toggled back to be a private non-viewable message. Please note that when a recording is played from a MessageBoard or via an e-mail link, it is free to users who play it but you are charged for the streaming download cost.
Within "Manage Your Account" you will find a section on Recordings. From the recording section you can e-mail a link to play the recording to a friend (or group of people), or add the recording to the Recorded Events Directory.
Upon completion of the publication process, the item will appear under Streaming Presentations. People will be able to view the details, and play it. If you are charging a fee for it, they will be forced to pay for it before it is played. All funds received are credited to your credit account (less a 5% processing fee), and you will receive a monthly check from WebTrain for funds collected on your behalf.
People receiving the e-mail link simply click on the link to play it. This is a good way to distribute the recording if you are not intending to charge for it. You can also copy the link and paste it on your web-site, but once again, only if you are not intending to charge for it.
If you do wish to charge for the content, you need to add the Recording to the Recorded Events Directory. To add the Recording to the Recorded Events Directory select Manage your Account from the right hand menu and scroll down to the Recording section, then click on the add link next to your recording. Then fill the form that is loaded to assign the publication a description, category and details, as well as free and pay-per-view values. You should also either restrict people from accessing the MessageBoard using MessageBoard security, or make sure the message is private so people will not be able to view the recording from within the MessageBoard and must pay for it.
Upon completion of the publication process, the item will appear under Watch Recorded Events. People will be able to view the details, and play it. If you are charging a fee for it, they will be forced to pay for it before it is played. All funds received are credited to your credit account (less a 5% processing fee), and you will receive a monthly check from WebTrain for funds collected on your behalf.
If you have integrated your website, your recording will automatically appear on your participants page. Please note that if your website is integrated, make sure you complete the publication process using your hosting page rather than from WebTrain. Otherwise, your recording will not appear on your participants page.
Each time the recording is played, your credit account is billed for streaming costs at a rate of $2.50 or less per hour. If the recording contains 30 minutes of content, your credit account would be charged $1.25 or less. Your cost is never more than $2.50 per hour, and if you have pre-purchased time in bulk at a lower rate, your cost will be less.
Each hour of average recorded content requires approximately 5MB to 10MB of storage. Of course, if you do not transmit large pictures and capture webcam images less frequently or not at all, data storage will be less. Storage on the MessageBoards cost $5.00 per month per each 5MB.
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| I would like to offer a fee-based course on WebTrain. What do I need to do? |
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Create an Account if you need one.
Purchase Time
Next, you need to click on Manage your Account and scroll down to the Future Events section, select Schedule a New Future Event. If you have an integrated site, make sure you perform this process from your integrated site.
One of three templates may be selected, providing a suitable structure for courses, conferences and presentations. Select the most appropriate template to continue.
When defining the event, you may select up to three different hosts. Hosts must have a WebTrain account, but since your purchased time will be used for the event, hosts do not need to purchase time.
Each event comes with its own MessageBoard, which you can choose to use for text message postings or for attachments. When people enroll in your event, they automatically obtain Standard Access to the associated MessageBoard. They can then view public postings (which may contain attachments), reply to postings, etc.
Maximum class size is used to restrict course enrollment. It is not related to how many live sessions will be scheduled. If you want to limit the size of the class to a specific number of people, enter that number. Otherwise, enter 500 as the maximum limit.
If your course consists of one single live session and you do not plan to offer the course again, then you should select "Single class offered once only". If you wish to offer the course multiple times, you will need to duplicate the event once it is created. Both of these options force people to enroll in each live session offered. If you are offering a course consisting of multiple live sessions over a time period, then select "Multiple-class course" for the course scheduling option. This method allows people to enroll just once, yet participate in many live sessions. Depending upon your scheduling selection, you must enter start and ending dates and times, and/or schedule the time of the session using a calendar feature.
All dates and times should be entered using your current time zone. Please ensure that the time zone setting on your PC is correct. When the event information is stored on WebTrain, dates and times are automatically converted to GMT, and when people browse the information, dates and times are converted back to their particular time zone.
You can define whether or not the event is free (no enrollment), free but enrollment required, fee-based, or whether or not to display registration and pricing from your own website. If the event is fee-based, you must define costs and applicable taxes, and select which methods of payment will be accepted. If you allow payment by check, you must define information that will be presented to users when they enroll so they know where to send the money and who to make the check out to. If you allow payment by e-commerce, users can pay online, and funds collected by WebTrain on your behalf will be credited to your credit account, and reimbursed within 30 days less a 5% processing fee.
If other people have allowed you to charge to their account, you can select which account should be assigned to the event. Otherwise, just select your account for the account setting.
If you have an integrated site, and wish to do custom payments, make sure to set the customization settings. Otherwise, you can leave these settings blank. After you have saved the definition, view it in the Scheduled Events list and test the enrollment process.
After you have registered your event it will also appear in "Manage your Account". Since you are the registrant, you can change the event, remove it, manage enrollments and access the event MessageBoard to make postings, etc. People who have been assigned to host the event will also be able to access the MessageBoard and manage enrollments, but they are not allowed to change or remove the event.
When people enroll in your course and pay by check, they are added to the event enrollment table as NOT PAID. When people pay using e-commerce, they are added to the event enrollment table as PAID. When people enroll using your custom method you can call a function to automatically add them, or you can manually add them to the event enrollment table as MANUAL enrollments. Each time someone enrolls in your event, the registrant and all instructors (hosts) are e-mailed information regarding the new enrollment. When a check arrives from a person who enrolled, use the enrollment feature to mark the entry as PAID. Otherwise, the person will not be allowed to join the live event when it is in session. As the registrant of the event, you and people who have been assigned to host the event may also manually add people to the enrollment table.
When people have enrolled in an event, details of the events they are registered in appear under Manage your Account. The event details support links for them to access the MessageBoard at any time.
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| My PowerPoint slides take 5 minutes for a dial-up user to receive. Why? |
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The brief simple answer is that the slide is a large file which takes a long time to receive on a dial-up (approximately one second for every 3KB). The cause of the large file size is generally either from the use of complex backgrounds for slides, or the use of large picture images in slides. When people create PowerPoint presentations, the focus is often on how nice the slides look, as much as what they are communicating. For example, the background images that come with PowerPoint may be used to add some color or interest. However, these backgrounds are actually very large files, many greater than 1MB in size. Also, you may have inserted a large bitmap image such as a picture into one or more of your slides.
Using gradient backgrounds or plain color backgrounds for your slides will solve the first problem as these types of backgrounds require only a few bytes.
Using images saved in a format that conserves file size may solve the second problem. If large images are imported into a slide and scaled to a smaller size, the file size is not reduced to match the visual size of the image. You need to copy the re-sized image to your clipboard, paste it into a paint program such as Microsoft Paint, save it, and then insert the newly saved file into the slide. This process reduces the file size of the slide, yet nothing is lost visually.
You can also conserve file size by using more efficient image formats such as .gif and .jpg formats instead of the rather inefficient .bmp format. However, some images may not show as well in these formats due to loss of color information or blurring.
You can see how big your slides are by moving your mouse over the navigation buttons when using the WebTrain PowerPoint utility. When your mouse is placed over the right arrow (Next Slide) button, a tool-tip appears detailing the slide's uncompressed file size. Try to create slides that are 50kB or less.
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| When I show pictures, some people in the meeting don't get them. Why? |
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Some users have local firewall software running on their PC. They must either grant our application "approval", or modify their firewall settings so that it does not interfere with the meeting. WtrCommon.ocx, WtSlides.exe and WtCapture.exe are the three primary WebTrain components that perform HTTP processes such as GET and POST.
Clients may also be behind a network that uses a firewall that prevents binary files from being transported. Since all images that are sent and received are compressed and 128-bit encrypted, the network firewall may be preventing the file from being retrieved.
While you are in a meeting with someone who is not getting images, move your mouse over their name on the participant grid. If their BPS rate is 22000, there's a good probability that the problem is firewall related.
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| WebTrain offers a link called Website Integration. What does this do? |
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The Website Integration link, which can be found in the support tab, creates examples of code that you can post on your site. Basic Integration is available after a purchase of 200 hours is made and branded integration is available after a purchase of 1000 hours.
Website Integration allows you to host WebTrain functionality on your servers so that your clients never have leave your website to join a meeting room or an event. You will have access to source code and examples that will enable you to call pages from our website without appearing to leave your website.
The Web-site Integration process should be undertaken by the person who will be using the administration page, with some help from your IT department. The pages created will be based on some technical selections and some administrative decisions.
Once you have decided on the format for your integrated site you will need to create your integration record. Once you have clicked on Website Integration click on Add New Integrated Site. You will need to fill out this form to create your integrated site, make sure to add complete URLs (http://www.yourdomain.com/filename.htm) wherever they are required.
Once you have completed the definition you will have access to the code examples and the Quickstart Template. You can save the source of the template and use that as a simple, complete integration or you can use the code examples to create a page of your own.
All the sample code can be modified for appearance and coloring, just be careful not to change any of the actual code in the iframes or links that may cause the code to not work.
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| I have heard of Application Sharing. Does WebTrain do this? |
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Yes, this is an option available to the person who is screen-casting in a meeting or event. Screen-casting, which is sometimes called application broadcasting, involves broadcasting everything you do in an application, or on your desktop, including making menu selections, keyboard inputs and mouse movements, as well as live voice, to all the participants in your meeting or event. While screen-casting, the presenter can select one other person from the meeting to share the application or desktop, by selecting that person's name from a menu. The person sharing the application or desktop can then send instructions to the presenter's computer while everyone else watches and listens.
This is handy for providing technical assistance to someone willing to share their desktop with you, or for providing hands-on use of an application you are demonstrating. The person allowing the sharing can always turn the sharing function off, by using either a menu button or the F10 key.
Note that when you are application sharing, there is a slight delay in seeing the results of what you are doing on someone else's computer, since your instructions have to travel to WebTrain's nearest broadcast server, and then to the sharer's computer, before they take effect. Then the screen-cast image of the effect generated has to travel back to the WebTrain broadcast server and to your computer. For example, if you type on someone's Word document, you will not see the results of your typing for a second or two.
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| I want to show people a live demo of my application. How should I go about doing this? |
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To do an effective online demo of your product, a little preparation will go a long way. A combination of PowerPoint slides and captured images of your application can be useful in introducing topics you want to discuss, as it is easy to switch between screen-casting and slide/image presentation. Slides should be prepared with plain color or gradient backgrounds to minimize delivery time on low-bandwidth connections, and you should preview them in practise sessions before trying live demos with customers.
Practice screen-casting your application with a colleague, as well. You will soon learn how to pace the presentation so that it shows off your application in the best light.
Once you are ready to go live, it helps to do things in the right order. Get your application up and running, and sized to approximately 90% of screen width, before opening the WebTrain Meeting. Once you are in the meeting, click on WebCam to start your webcam (if you have one) and open your slide presentation or image folder. Once your participants have joined the meeting, you will just need to turn on the microphone and the screen-casting.
You can pause screen-casting to mark up the last capture of your application, or to present a slide or stored image. You can also allow someone else to share your application if they want to experience running the application themselves.
It is also wise to prepare your customers for what to expect prior to using WebTrain. The information available in the Join tutorial link may be useful in this regard. You can e-mail them a copy of this information when you invite them to attend your demo.
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| I can't get my microphone to work. What should I do? |
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If your microphone is not working the first thing to do it make sure that it is plugged into the correct port on your computer. Also check that you have a stereo microphone plug (it should have two black bands on the plug) since most computers have stereo mike sockets. Sometimes you can plug a mono jack halfway into a stereo socket to make it work. If that does not fix the problem you likely need to adjust some of your audio settings.
To access your audio settings you can double-click on Volume Control (a speaker icon) on your taskbar to bring up the Volume Controls. If you don't have a Volume Control icon on your taskbar (usually near your clock), you need to click on the Start button and go to Settings, then Control Panel. Once the Control Panel is open, double-click on Multimedia and select the Audio tab. At the bottom of the window there is a checkbox you should check to Show Volume Control on the Taskbar. Also check the box to Use Only Preferred Devices if it is not already checked. Close the Multimedia window by clicking on OK, and then close Control Panel. You can now double-click on the Volume Control icon.
When the Volume Control opens, some or all of your Playback controls will be displayed. If you select Options then Properties, a listbox can be used to display more controls. If the microphone is not checked in this listbox, you should check it and click OK. When the Volume Control window reappears, it will have the microphone control shown. You don't want to use your microphone as a Playback control, so make sure the microphone is muted.
Next, select Options, then Properties again, and this time select the Recording option instead of the Playback option. Make sure that the microphone is checked in the listbox, then click on OK. When the Recording Control window opens, make sure that microphone is selected and other controls are either not selected or are muted. You can then close the window.
This should clear up your microphone problems. Try testing the microphone using Start | Programs | Accessories | Entertainment | Sound Recorder. If the Microsoft Sound Recorder does not work, your microphone or sound card may be faulty, incompatible, or have the wrong driver installed.
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| Someone was talking, then nothing... Were they disconnected? What happened? |
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The Internet is a busy place, and sometimes people are unexpectedly disconnected from it. When this happens, data cannot be transmitted, and the person who lost their connection may think their computer is locked up, since their mouse instructions are not being sent. After 30 to 60 seconds goes by, you may see "First LastName is having connection problems." displayed in the textchat pane. When this message is displayed, it means that the broadcast server is no longer connected to that participant.
When a user loses their connection to the WebTrain broadcast server, the software automatically tries to re-connect. If it is able to re-connect, a message is sent to all participants that the user is no longer having a connection problem.
If the participant is not able to re-connect to the broadcast server within ten minutes, the participant is removed from the room, just as if they had left normally.
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| While in a meeting, I saw "Connection Problems" then got kicked out. What happened? |
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This is caused when you (or someone else logged on in your name) join or host the same event you are already in. The second version of yourself that accesses the meeting room participant record causes the first computer's connection to fail. This may happen when you switch from one computer to another due to connection difficulties, or if two people are using one account name.
We allow you to join or host a meeting, even when another version of you is apparently already in or hosting the meeting. This is done for re-connection purposes. For example, perhaps your power went off for a minute, or you lost your Internet connection. The broadcast server keeps you in the meeting, even though it knows you have been disconnected, to try to re-establish a connection. If you don't rejoin within ten minutes of disconnecting, you are automatically removed from the meeting participant list.
If you are the host, your participants will not all be kicked out of the meeting when you lose your connection, although they will be informed you are having connection difficulties. If you do not get back into the meeting within ten minutes, the broadcast server will automatically close the meeting, to avoid incurring charges to your account.
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| When I go to host or join, the download page appears then nothing. What is wrong? |
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This problem is caused when using IE 5.0, service pack 0, or your Windows 2000 service packs have not been installed, or when IE settings need to be changed.
If you are using IE 5.0 with Windows 2000, please update now.
A service pack for IE fixes a bug that affects downloads.
Please ensure that the following IE settings are used:
Click on the Tools Menu
Select Internet Options
Click on the Security Tab
Reset default security to Medium
Click on the Connections Tab
Click on [Lan Settings]
uncheck "Automatically Detect Settings"
The problem could also be due to IE security settings or possibly workstation privileges. For example, the installation may have failed if you do not have enough security clearance on the work station you are using. Have the administrator sign on and install the components.
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| I want to share my pre-paid time with someone. How can I do this? |
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To share your time with someone click on the "Manage your Account" link on the side menu. Under your account information you will see a section titled "I authorize the following people to use time and post charges to my account. Click on one of the select links. Search for the person you want to share with and click on their name when it appears. The windows should close and you should see the person's name next to the select link that you clicked on. Finally you just have to click the submit button just below.
When the person goes to host a meeting they will need to select your account to bill to from the dropdown that will be available before they enter the meeting room.
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| People see funny triangles when I screen-cast. What is happening? |
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More than likely, you are using Windows XP or Windows 2000. Microsoft has documented this "feature" as a problem with video card acceleration. To fix this "feature", right mouse click on the empty desktop and select Properties. Click on the Settings tab, then click on the [Advanced] button. Select Performance or Troubleshoot, and change video acceleration to none.
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