Tag Archives: Access Grid

Access Grid and VNC abuse

Ok yesterday was the first day I worked as a Access grid support officer.

And as a whole the software is pretty cool.

3 Universities inside the country live video and audio the software reports back it’s moving data at about 1 Mb/s

My problem is how they use VNC….

Lecturer has a powerpoint presenation he wants to show the other end they log into a VNC server on the presenating computer.

1st problem differing resolutions at the other end. Our vnc server desktop is 4 screens long. so it’s got a combined resolution of roughly 1024 x 30724096×768. where the other end appeared to only have a single screen and that of only 1024×768. so the powerpoint presentation had to be windowed and shrunk so the didn’t exceed the display of the other ends.

2nd problem is that then the power point has animations. Now we have a pretty fast link at the university and so do the other universities. But VNC wasn’t designed to broadcast video, It sends still screen shots at a fast enough refresh rate that remote administration is doable most of the time. But here is a screen of size 1024x 3072 4096×768 and we are being asked why the image being received by the Unis in Melbourne and SA, doesn’t have smooth animations.

I understand why VNC is used it allows both ends to have control of the screen so other students in the topological groups course can actually write there questions on the electronic whiteboards (smart boards ) and the lecturer and other students can see them and edit the question and answer it. But oddly enough Microsoft had a solution to this years ago and that was Microsoft’s Netmeeting has a whiteboard application so multiple users can write on the same “whiteboard” space .. .now this was well before the smart boards came along.

looks like there is plenty of room to improve methods. And the challenge in this new job isn’t getting your room in order but if one of the other locations don’t have a techie on hand.

Also if you know any great applications for this sort of stuff leave a message.

Edit: got my resolution the wrong way 4 screens long so 4096×768 . Always get confused with the is it height then width or width then height.

New Job

This afternoon after an interview before Easter. I was offered the job of Access Grid Support Officer working for 17000 at the University of Newcastle.

It looks like it’s going to be a great part time job while I’m at Uni.

Basics of the Job is that I’ll be running and tech support for the Universities Teleconference suite. (or Access grid)  The University has 2 of these rooms both located at the top of the maths building. (one equipped with smart boards a the other a touch screen TV)

At the moment the only group using the room is the Maths department for topological groups and other distance education courses. But there are plans to open the rooms up to other departments as well as offering a commercial service to the public sector.

I’ve been told the software running the room is open source, which should be another plus.