Zymurgy Live: Brewing Local with Stan Hieronymus

Zymurgy
1

Loved the idea of this event. Thanks to Stan for taking the time to put on the presentation and tell us about his new book. Really looking forward to this being a regular thing.

Now to the complaining. That WebEX software horrible. How in this day and age such a collection of utter garbage code can be allowed to exist is beyond me. Crappy code that does not execute coupled with horrible interface design decisions and terrible aesthetic choices should not be supported. I cringe to think that some small fraction of my fees went to pay for that steaming pile of shit. There are much better options out there, please use those instead.

2

It worked fine for me. (on Opera)

3

+1 to this. Really enjoyed the talk and looking forward to other talks.

I had no problems, unlike the OP.

4

It worked perfect for me on a windows based platform, i used Firefox FYI.

5

WebEX is pretty common for video conferencing. I’ve used it quite a bit and never had a problem.

6

I used it extensively in college and a few times professionally with zero issues.

7

Hi stonebriar -

I am sorry to hear that you had such a negative experience with the WebEx portal. I’d be interested in hearing more about how we could improve Zymurgy Live for all users. I’m aware that there were a few audio issues, and we are taking steps to alleviate that for the next webinar. If you could email me with some suggestions on how we can improve the aesthetics of the presentation, I would really appreciate it!

I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Thanks!

Matt Bolling
AHA Events & Membership Coordinator (and the guy who set up the steaming pile of s***)
matt@brewersassociation.org

8

Yep, same here.  No problems.

9

I ran the audio through the external USB interface and speakers we use for the podcast and had no issues at all.

10

My only issue is the scheduling. Midday on a Tuesday is not at all convenient for those that work “regular” hours. Looking forward to being able to watch the archived video.

11

My problem was that I totally spaced out and decided to do some yard work. Oh well, I plan on seeing Stan’s presentation at HomebrewCon…

12

Yeah, I had every intention of tuning in, but after work I lost track of it. I’ll be looking for the video if/when it posts.

13

I’m (obviously) not the OP, but I do work remotely and therefore have some experience with remote participation events. I am also a software developer and have (very negative) Opinions about client-side java which is the technology used by WebEx (Webex Help Center).

In my view there are several problems with WebEx:

  1. Relying on the JRE, which is reasonably complex and large. Anecdotally, it has been difficult to use (see: OP)
  2. This technology does not work on most mobile platforms

FWIW, hangouts-on-air (Google Workspace Updates: The future of Currents and the next generation of collaboration in Spaces) seem to be a good option here with less technical overhead (in my limited experience). SparkFun electronics uses this for “SparkFun Live” events (ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sYP_tzBVf0)—which is, AFAICT very similar to this event—it seems to work well.

Hangouts on-air:

  1. Do not require any plugins to watch (AFAIK)
  2. Have most functionality built in to browsers and are available via mobile
  3. Allow easy remote participation

At work we use hangouts-on-air along with an IRC back-channel to ask questions. There is some chat system built into youtube hangouts events, which might be usable.

Kudos for putting out the Zymurgy Live events: very exciting. Thank you for being open to feedback!

EDIT: corrected SparkFun Live example link (previous link was for a promo video)

14

Any idea when the archived video will post?