NetMeeting on home laptop

[BA93]

I'm running a NCAA tourney fantasy game next week in an auction format. I have an Access db that controls the auction that I've been using for the past 5 years.

For the first time the bar we hold the auction at is wireless, so I was thinking about creating some type of NetMeeting to allow remote people to be involved.

What are my options for running NetMeeting? Do I need to pay for a service to act as the host of NetMeeting or can I just run it directly from my laptop and have other people connect in? I want the cheapest method (aka free) to have about 5-6 people view my desktop. Thanks.

A friend just told me that WebEx offers a free 2 week trial that hosts online meetings for up to 10 people. Should I go with that?

 

[next2naus]

WebEx: yes

NetMeeting a.k.a. LiveMeeting a.k.a. Placeware: not sure if there is a freebie as its been MSFT-ized

 

[idigTexas]

Because you need attendees of your meeting to view updates to a database program in real time, not just go through a presentation or view some documents, hosting your meeting on WebEx or the like isn't really viable without setting up something special (read "for a price").

If you have an available web server, and mad programming skills (or the money to hire them), you can set up a website that would allow you to manage your auction remotely, and your freinds to view the results in real time. Time and resources are likely going to prevent that scenario, so your best bet is to allow remote users to view your screen as you manage the auction on your laptop.

Allowing others to view what is happening on your system is fairly easy. NetMeeting is ok, but not necessarily the best choice. It is bloated and all attendees must have the same version. A free and less resource hungry option is TightVNC. Even being less bloated, having that many users hit your laptop may cause some performance issues.

In addition, unless you are really good friends with the bar owner and/or his IT person, your remote friends will likely be unable to get to your laptop. This is because the required ports for whatever remote software you run will likely be closed to the outside world. If you were doing this at home, you could make the necessary changes to your router/firewall to route the ports accordingly. Since you are at the mercy of the bar's network infrastructure, you can't really do squat.

It sounds like a cool idea, but I don't think you will be able to pull it off this time around unless you have some good friends in geeky places.

 

[idigTexas]

Upon further review, WebEx might actually work. It has more capabilities now than what I remeber it having. You may still run into firewall issues, but it couldn't hurt to try. I'd go to the bar and try a test meeting sometime before the main event.