The fast track to interactive conferencing
Interactive conferencing lets users from around the globe converse. Today, hundreds of conference servers and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers make Internet chat rooms hotter than ever.
Running a conference site is not difficult, because software and
administration manuals are at your fingertips. One software and administration
manual combination, Building Your Own Web Conferences, by Susan B. Peck
and Beverly Murray Scherf, (O'Reilly & Associates, 1997), is a complete book
and CD-ROM solution for Windows NT and Windows 95 Web masters who want to host
online conferences. The kit includes O'Reilly's WebBoard 2.0 Web conferencing
software. This software solution lets Web masters host both message-based
conferences and online chat sessions via Web pages.
WebBoard lets Web masters create conference areas (similar to usenet
newsgroups) and interactive chat rooms (like IRC chat areas). Four conferences
are available: public conferences, which let anyone read and post messages;
moderated conferences, which let anyone read postings, but a moderator must
approve all postings; private conferences, which limit read and post privileges
to selected people; and read-only conferences, which let everyone read the
messages in the conference, but only the systems administrator, moderator, or
conference manager can post messages.
Creating conferences is simple. When you log on as the administrator, the
software's wizards help you create your conferences. Within each conference you
can create a chat area for people to interactively communicate. A small
JavaScript program permits this interactive communication. When a user enters
the chat area, the program downloads to the user's computer.
WebBoard's initial installation works with Internet Information
Server (IIS) or any Common Gateway Interface (CGI)- or Internet Server API
(ISAPI)-compliant Web server, such as Netscape's FastTrack Server or Purveyor
WebServer from Process Software. The WebBoard package includes its Web server,
in case you install the package on a Win95 host or on an NT host without a Web
server. However, the software prefers the O'Reilly Web server, because it
supports HTML file attachments and is compact and efficient.
To install the software, I ran setup.exe off the distribution CD-ROM.
The first question you must answer concerns the Web server. You must select
either the O'Reilly Web server or an existing Web server. If you already have an
existing Web site, you still might install the O'Reilly Web server but have it
monitor an IP port other than 80 (the default HTTP port). You can use the
O'Reilly Web server and all its features to host your Web conferences, yet still
maintain your existing site. I installed the package into my IIS environment.
After you select Web servers, the install program prompts you for your
server's name, the name of your mail server (new users automatically get email
when they sign on to your Web conference site), and some information about the
WebBoard administrator. The program uses this information to create an
administrative account so you can administer your Web conferences with the
WebBoard software.
After you install the software, you need to connect to your WebBoard site
from a client computer to set up your conferences. To complete this setup, I
logged on as the administrative user and ran the Create Conference wizard.
Screen 1 shows a typical conference screen. I had this conference running in 5
minutes, including the time I took to install the software. WebBoard's wizards
let you add new conferences.
To use the WebBoard software, your customers must connect to a URL.
For example, on a stock IIS installation (such as my server), WebBoard installs
itself into a virtual directory that you can access by connecting to http://<yourserver>/WebBoard/webboard.dll. To access the software, your customers point
their Web browsers to this address. After they connect, they must provide a
logon name and password. New users can log on by providing basic user
information and selecting a user ID and password.
WebBoard is an excellent product. You get a copy of the manual and the
WebBoard software capable of hosting two virtual boards and 10 conferences per
board. I highly recommend this software package for any small to midsized
company looking to establish a Web presence with interactive conferencing
capabilities.