Free Conference Calling Blog

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.

We’ve decided to make available to the public some code snippets for use with Asterisk, the free PBX which powers the Rondee free conferencing service. The first code in the set allows live streaming of audio from conferences using only a PHP script and a web server. Other solutions out there require much more complex configurations.

Along the same lines, we will soon be launching live web-based streaming for your Rondees.

One of our missions at Rondee is to let our users know about innovative telephony services as they become available. PhoneSpamFilter.com is one such service. It’s a user-supported clearinghouse of phone solicitor phone numbers, and more importantly, it allows telephony providers to automatically block telemarketers using a free Asterisk-based PHP script. What could be better?

Take a look at the service, and next time you get an annoying sales call, make sure and post a comment.

Some of you may have noticed that Rondee was not accessible for a period of time this past weekend. We apologize for this unplanned outage. It was due to a catastrophic failure at our primary hosting facility, theplanet.com. Here is an article about the outage, which affected 9,000 companies.

We have restored full service as of today. There was no loss of data, and most of those affected were able to use our backup conferencing system to hold successful Rondees.

Thank you for sticking with us through this outage. We are currently investigating ways to increase redundancy in our systems to ensure this does not happen again.

We’ve recently released some fixes to the ability to schedule a call which recurs every day, weekday, week or month. This may mean that some people who scheduled recurring calls in the past will suddenly receive new invitations in their email. If those invitations are not wanted, the organizer can simply cancel the call.

We’ve received questions about how recurring calls work.  Here’s a more detailed explanation:

• When a user specifies that a Rondee will be recurring, we store that information away, but we do not create a bunch of invitations in the future. Each recurring Rondee has only one “live” invitation at any given time.
• When the conference concludes, we determine when the next scheduled version of the recurring call should take place. We then schedule another Rondee at that date.

This means that users can stop a recurring call simply by unchecking the “Make this a recurring Rondee” checkbox.

We’ve fixed some glitches in our audio recording system. Users should now be able to access the audio recorded from all past free conference calls using the system. If you’re still unable to access some audio that you think should be there, please let us know.

Some customers have asked us to provide them with a special PIN that they can distribute to others who would like to listen-in on an ongoing conference call.

We will shortly launch a new feature designed to do just that. On your invitation page, you will now see a “Listen-only PIN”. This PIN is unique to your conference, and it remains private unless you distribute it to others.

Possible uses include investor conference calls and presentations, semi-public meetings and religious services.

Please keep the ideas coming!

Some users had reported problems with subscribing to their Rondee calendar using a Macintosh.

We have now modified the vCal files generated by Rondee to work properly on iCal. We have also tested the new code against Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook.

If any users have experiences — positive or negative — with other calendaring applications, please let us know so we can keep the website updated.