Virtual meetings, video conferencing . . . the mind swims with possibilities for state-of-the-art communication opportunities. Everyday new products that promise to make working with others easier and more efficient enter the market. One of these collaborative communication tools is Microsoft NetMeeting.

NetMeeting for Windows is an award-winning product that provides nearly complete conferencing solutions. Powerful features let you communicate with others (using audio and video), collaborate on virtually any Windows-based application (including PowerPoint), exchange graphics on an electronic whiteboard, transfer files, and exchange text-based messages. This makes NetMeeting a perfect solution for creating collaborative electronic presentations.

Like PowerPoint, with Microsoft NetMeeting you can use the Internet or a corporate intranet to initiate an online meeting from within any Office program, or you can work directly from the NetMeeting program.

Note For complete installation and setup instructions for NetMeeting, visit the Microsoft page devoted to NetMeeting Q&A.

The main steps involved in using NetMeeting are the following:

• Host an online meeting
• Join an online meeting
• Collaborate in an online meeting

Host An Online Meeting

• Start the meeting
  When scheduling an online meeting, you can do so in advance (with Microsoft Outlook) or on the fly from within the PowerPoint presentation you want to share. It's quite simple to do. If the selected participants are available and they accept the invitation to join the online meeting begins. To initiate an online meeting, you just select Presentation Conference from the Tools menu.






• Control the presenation
  As the initiator (host), you are the only one who controls the presentation — in the beginning. The participants can see your PowerPoint presentation on their screens but they cannot make changes until you allow them to collaborate. You allow participants to make changes to the presentation by turning on "collaboration", and you turn off the participants collaborative permissions at will.
  
  When collaboration is enabled, each person in the online meeting can take turns editing and controlling the presentation. The initials of the person in control of the presentation appear next to the mouse pointer. When someone else is in control of the presentation you, (the initiator) do not have use of your cursor — not only with respect to the presentation but for any other purpose as well.



• Add participants
  You can invite participants to join an online meeting at any time. However, participants who are invited on the fly must have NetMeeting running on their computers.

Join An Online Meeting

When you are invited to participate in an online meeting, you receive a message that asks you to join an upcoming or ongoing online meeting. When you accept the invitation, the Online Meeting toolbar and the presentation that is being shared appear on your screen.

Collaborate in An Online Meeting

Online meetings are collaborative affairs. You can share applications and documents, send messages, and even work on the whiteboard. During an online meeting, only one person can control the presentation at a time. However, all users can send messages or use the whiteboard. Most importantly, the host of the meeting is the only person who needs to have the shared document and its application installed.

The Chat feature allows you to . . .	Enter text messages to communicate with meeting participants. Use "Whisper" mode to send private messages to another person during a group session. Save the contents from the Chat session to a file for future reference.
The Whiteboard feature means you can . . .	Review, create, and update graphic information. Drag and drop information. Cut, copy and paste information from any Windows-based application into the Whiteboard. Save the Whiteboard contents for future reference.
The Program Sharing feature allows you to . . .	View shared programs in a frame that differentiates desktop and shared applications. Minimize the shared program frame and do other work if you do not need to work in the current conference program. Grant permissions to work in the program to meeting participants.

Bonus Tip! For complete questions and answers regarding this product, visit the Microsoft page devoted to NetMeeting Q&A!

System Requirements

90 MHz Pentium processor 16 MB RAM (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME) 24 MB RAM (Windows NT) Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 or greater 56,000 or greater modem, ISDN, or LAN 4 MB free hard disk space Sound card with microphone and speakers Video capture card or camera that provides a video for Windows capture driver