Software for live collaborative annotation of web page

November 11, 2005 12:50 PM

How can we enable multiple teleconferencers to share the same view of a web page, trade off control of a shared cursor, and overlay freeform annotations onto this page they're all viewing? Without making firewall changes? (IT is firm on that requirement)</strong

This is for long distrance web development meetings. For example, Amanda in the UK could sketch over the logo with a few refinements to illustrate what she has in mind. When she's done, Boris in Vancouver would be able to tack on a couple keywords he'd thinks are important concepts to emphasize in the next draft. Then Carl in Atlanta could scroll the page downward, using the cursor to point out which of the features he does/doesn't want to keep. Everyone needs to be able to see this is realtime while discussing. Recording the session is unimportant, but it's got to be pretty easy for the non-technie conferees to install/use.

posted by nakedcodemonkey to technology (11 comments total)

What are the firewall rules?
posted by Jairus at 1:06 PM on November 11, 2005

Most firewalls allow SSH traffic on port 22 through because of the strong encryption it encompasses.

If yours follows this convention, then you should be able to tunnel network traffic from any remote desktop protocol (Apple Remote Desktop, Microsoft Remote Desktop, VNC, other port numbers) through SSH — and therefore through your firewall.

Setup of tunnelling is not easy for non-techies, but the technology works, and if IT won't budge on firewall settings, this may be your only reasonable option. Good luck.
posted by Rothko at 1:21 PM on November 11, 2005

I don't know specifics, but as a company they're pretty restrictive. Http, https, and mail are allowed, but I doubt much else. VNC has already been ruled out. Anything requiring a Secure Shell tunnel or VPS is unlikely to be approved.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 1:23 PM on November 11, 2005

VPS VPN
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 1:25 PM on November 11, 2005

Can you establish an SSH shell from a machine within the firewalled zone to the a SSH service outside the firewall, and vice versa? If you can, you can tunnel.
posted by Rothko at 1:26 PM on November 11, 2005

GoToMeeting. It's eay to use and set up, uses https/ssl for encrypted session. Very reasonable rates if you don't need more than 10 people on one call.
posted by pmbuko at 2:04 PM on November 11, 2005

Rothko, no luck there. Even if I had enough access rights and Win admin skillz to get SSH running on one of their machines, IT would freak. Judging by previous discussions, SSH and VPN are both regarded with a lot of wariness. It's a dead end or at least a very hard sell.

On preview: pmbuko, GoToMeeting sounds very promising. Thanks!
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 2:26 PM on November 11, 2005

This is an merely an observation; I'm not giving advice in any form.

It are supposed to support business needs, not hamper them.

I hate BOFHs.
posted by Leon at 2:42 PM on November 11, 2005

"IT are supposed to"
posted by Leon at 2:43 PM on November 11, 2005

Macromedia's Breezelive. Entirely Flash based. No firewall issues. Jeez, I'm starting to sound like a shill for this company, but it's just so much nicer than WebEx.
posted by spicynuts at 3:29 PM on November 11, 2005

Isn't LiveMeeting/Placeware designed to deal with this gracefully?
posted by VulcanMike at 3:56 PM on November 11, 2005