Free Conference Calling Blog

Some of our users occasionally report that their invites are going into spam folders

1.  For the people who cannot receive your conference call invite, a simple solution is to just personally email them their PIN codes and the dial-in number (the dial in is always 619-2-RONDEE (619-276-6333).
You will see their PIN codes displayed under their names on the page that shows the Rondee details.  Not sure where this page is?  Log back into Rondee, click on MyRondees (link is on the top navigation bar), and click on the specific Rondee conference call you have scheduled.

Folks sometimes ask about the risk of an uninvited “guest” listening in on a Rondee.  In practice it would not be possible for a spy to listen-in without you knowing. That is because when you call-in to the conference call first as the organizer, you’ll be told how many people are currently on the conference.  Presumably you’ll be told that you are the first (if, in fact, you are).  Thereafter, as each person joins the Rondee teleconference they are announced by name.  If somebody were to try and use the PIN of a user - without authorization - and dial in without saying their name to the system, you would immediately notice because the system would announce “blank” is joining the conference.

This is one of our most frequently asked about topics: Recording your Rondee

When you set up your Rondee you’ll see several boxes with options you can select. Just check the box to record the call (I assume you already did this if you are a frequent user). Your invitees will be notified that the call is being recorded. After the call is over, just go back to Rondee.com (as I mentioned in my earlier post, you can get to your call through “My Rondees” link at the top of the page once logged into your account; you’ll see a new link for the recording which will have appeared on the particular page corresponding to that Rondee.)

Your call will record in the GSM format. If you’re interested in how to convert that to another format, please see the blog post by one of our users

If you have other suggestions for us - please post below or use our contact page. Rondee is aiming to build the best free conference calling service

Muting and other options for teleconferencing

Each participant on a Rondee conference call can mute or un-mute themselves. You press pound 1 to mute and then pound 1 to unmute. If you forget this option, you can always press pound to hear all other options on Rondee’s conference calling services.
Remember that the dial in number is 619-276-6333 for your call.

A question we sometimes get:

1. For the people who cannot receive your invite, a simple solution is to just personally email them their PIN codes and the dial-in number (the dial in is always 619-2-RONDEE (619-276-6333). Unlike some providers of free conference call numbers, we keep ours constant and easy to remember.

You will see their PIN codes displayed under their names on the page that shows the Rondee details. Not sure where this page is? Log back into Rondee, click on MyRondees (link is on the top navigation bar), and click on the specific Rondee conference call you have scheduled.

2. You also might want to ask them to add rondee@rondee.com to their email-address book so that they won’t have the junk problem in the future

Some of you have commented on our recent press release about podcasting.  With our audio feature, Rondee has effectively enabled podcasters to record and download podcasts using only a telephone. This eliminates the need for podcasters to use a microphone and computer for recording. Podcasters can call into the system alone or record a free conference call with others.  Rondee has made sure that podcasters now have the world’s easiest way to record their podcasts.

Rondee assigns each organizer and each invitee their own PIN.

Rondee also assigns a listen-only PIN to just the organizer. Any number of people may call in using this PIN to hear the conference. Like all Rondee PINs, this one is private unless the organizer chooses to share it with others.  What this means for you as the organizer of a Rondee conference call:

1) for the folks you want to participate by listening and speaking: invite them as you normally would using Rondee
2) for the folks you want to attend by listening only: simply email them the listen-only PIN and tell them when to call in

Frequently folks from Canada (or other countries) ask us whether they can use Rondee’s conference service. The answer is yes. Anybody can dial into Rondee (whether they are from Canada or any other country). The only requirement is users be able to dial a US phone number. Rondee’s bridge number is 619-276-6333 which is a regular, normal California phone number.

Here’s a tip we learned this week while working on a project for Rondee. We’ve been using a great USB-Key based Linux distribution called pendrivelinux — search it on Google to find it.

Anyway, there’s a common problem that comes up with Dell laptops, namely that if you try to boot to the first partition (/dev/sda1), all you get is a blinking cursor in the top left of the screen when you try to boot.

The solution is to put your entire boot filesystem on the /dev/sda drive, without any partitions. But, with pendrivelinux, this presents another problem. Unfortunately, it won’t boot fully when you do this. The solution is as follows:

Download the pendrivelinux filesystem. Retrieve the initrd.gz file from it, unzip it using gunzip and mount that file using “mount -o loop”. Next, edit the linuxrc file in the root of that filesystem. Search for the following line of code:

“for usb_device in /dev/sd[a-h][0-2]; do”

After this block of code, which ends at “done”, insert the following:

for usb_device in /dev/sd[a-h]; do
if [ -e “$usb_device” ]; then
CDROM_LIST=”$CDROM_LIST $usb_device”
fi
done

Now it should boot just fine.

You are making Rondee one of the most talked about conference calling companies in America. Thanks to all of you who give us your feedback, ideas and suggestions to help us grow.

Our first issue focused on the new features that we built to help make Rondee the best free conference calling service available. If you do not currently receive Rondee News, simply register for an account and you’ll be included on our issue next month.