On-Demand Video + CMS + Interactive Input For Museum? 131
remolacha writes "I've been given the task of tech chief for a biggish art museum (1,300 m^2, or about 13,000 sq ft) in Spain. The museum's designers want 20 'terminals' that will offer on-demand video and interactive content. The terminals' content will change with the exhibits; many will have touchscreens. More interesting forms of input are planned as well (floor sensors, big buttons). It's all on one floor, and the floors are raised, so I can run cabling and set up floor ethernet jacks. Max cable run is 60m / 190ft. The museum may expand to 4 times its projected size once open, by comandeering other floors in the building. To give an idea of where the designers heads are, they were talking about a massive DVD changer in a closet somewhere. I am thinking an intranet running a web server with a CMS and Flash media server, terminals running Firefox in kiosk mode. I'd love to do everything on Linux. Does anyone have experience with a setup like this, better ideas, or advice?"
Check these guys out (Score:5, Informative)
Check these guys out [kersonic.com]: They are specialized in pretty much exactly what you need.
You definitely want to use sound technologies, streaming, etc. Don't underestimate your audience, your average user tends to be really clueless, which means your terminals have to be rock-solid.
Congrats on landing what sounds like a cool project!
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Go for SILVERLIGHT!!!
Use what works best for the project. Dont use Linux just for the sake of using it.
You can do all the touch screen stuff and video streaming using silverlight.
maybe hire someone qualified (Score:4, Insightful)
maybe hire someone that can do the job?
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maybe his resume included "slashdot" as a skill
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Agreed. I've been doing this kind of museum work for over 20 years and currently can't get hired because I'm too experienced (read they don't want to pay a living wage.) And I've seen way too many IT people with no exhibit background fuck things up completely with excessive levels of complexity. Bottom line, if you don't know what you're doing, get out of the way and let someone qualified do it.
Yes, I'm bitter. With damned good reason.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you should consider adjusting what you consider to be a 'living wage' cause I'm pretty sure something is more than nothing.
You are bitter because you've been replaced by someone who better fits the needs of their employers. Your fault, not anyone else's.
As someone who is the highest paid employee at the company I'm working at, which is a struggling company, the FIRST thing I did when I found out about the financial situation is said 'a pay cut is FAR better than a layoff, talk to me before you do it!
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Hey, I like guys like him. I got my first job out of University because the other guy wouldn't budge on the wage.
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Most people don't seem to realize that they have the option, though. When the writing was on the wall at my last job, I went on a shortened work week almost immediately. From 40h/week to 36h/week. I made it clear to HR that I'd rather talk pay cut than layoff, and ended up taking a voluntary wage freeze in addition to reduced hours.
The result? It was a given that they'd be shutting down our location... it was with a global company that employs almost 80,000 worldwide, and closing us down in order to relocat
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So at some point you mustn't have known how to do all this stuff right? Or were you born with the knowledge?
I think the GP is on to a good thing and sounds like the kind of direction I would go if I were lucky enough to be working on the project.
A web server serving up pages and vids with kiosk mode firefox on Linux sounds like the way to go. I have worked on similar and seen various options for resetting things (the Kiosks) if they get messed up or abused, from simple restart scripts t
This guy does museum video (Score:3, Informative)
Buy it (Score:2, Insightful)
Get a quote, and buy it. When it doesn't work, scream at the vendor. Leave the tinkertoys at home.
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This is not true, I run Flash Media Server on Linux at home for development purposes. It's supported out of the box that way, though the scripts are RedHat specific (though it took me all of 5 minutes to fix that).
You don't really need FMS for this though; users are not likely to be jumping around in the video or needing variable bit rates changed up on the fly. A simple Apache install will do fine.
Definitely recommend Flash for the front end, a museum isn't going to want user contro
Interactivity at museums : ookl.org.uk (Score:3, Informative)
You may want to have a look at www.ookl.org.uk, a system for engaging people, often kids, in art and museum content. On OOKL, people use mobiles and computers to curate, share and present their own collections of material collected from the cultural venue (or world at large). I think OOKL's story-centric approach is very interesting.
Having been involved in OOKL early on I know all the server tech is Linux based. Give them a call -- they are a friendly bunch!
Anonymous Coward (Score:1, Informative)
In a fixed environment like a museum put you media out on the machines and use the network for administration and control. All streaming solutions place to much stress of the network for very little reason.
Why bother with a webserver and media streaming? (Score:2)
bulletproof, free and simple and centralized
build the webpages and address the files from the network shares.
people see HTML and automatically assume they have to get it and all the content from a webserver.
that is just creating headaches and extra process. as is the parents suggestion. if your LAN poops on video, buy modern gear.
buy a good network switch to isolate the terminal fe
Holy Infrastructure Batman (Score:1)
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It's been tried.
Visitors spent all there time staring at there phones, and ignored the museum artifacts.
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this raises an interesting consideration. you'd want to be sure that your implementation will draw people to the art, not your exhibit display. i know that stage is still down the road, once you've decided on a framework for delivering content, but keeping things low-key can carve a nice little niche whereas if your work draws too much attention curators could easily say, "this competes with the art, we want it out" and you'd possibly end up "out" with it.
LinuxMCE (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been looking at LinuxMCE [linuxmce.org] for my own home system. It looks like a really good fit for what you want: Media, touchscreen controls, multiple outputs. Plus, it's a thin-client system, so once you decide on a terminal setup, you can repeat ad nauseum.
I would also point out that this may be a good setup for the expansion you're alluding to. For example, you could set up different accounts for either different works or different artists. Log all the terminals in one room to the account under that artist, and you could have the media for all the different pieces queued up on the menu.
Hmmm..if you ever had a Salvador Dali [wikipedia.org] exhibit, you could have some Dark Side of the Moon playing on the sound system...
Sounds cool (Score:3, Informative)
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I've done a similar project (Score:5, Insightful)
I did a project like this about 10 years ago for a museum in London. We used pretty much exactly the same technology as you except we used Windows and it was IE in kiosk mode and not Firefox, and it was Macromedia Generator, not Flash Media Server.
Don't worry too much about what technical things the designers are saying, they don't understand the technology like you do and they can only present ideas from the few technical things they understand. As long as the end user sees what the designers want them to see, then they'll be happy. Use the best technology you know how to use.
I would disagree with the poster above regarding using sound technologies. You have to remember that museums can be pretty noisy places, especially during high profile exhibitions and on weekends (if you've been there during working hours on a workday, don't think that's as busy as it gets!). The background noise can prevent a user from properly hearing the audio, and having audio too loud can disturb and irritate other visitors.
Sure, add audio if you think it'll enhance the product but don't make the mistake of having an interface that needs audio to function. Get some of your testers to use the kiosk for the first time without the sound on. if they can't use it then you need to fix that.
Also remember museums are visited by tourists from other countries, you'll probably have to have translations from some of the major languages if your kiosk relies on language to be used (if you use spoken languages, you'll have to have subtitles as well because of sound difficulties)
You might be able to reduce costs if the museum agrees to a sponsorship deal. Manufacturers may be willing to provide the touch screens and/or other hardware if they get a "powered by" logo on the kiosk.
Re:I've done a similar project (Score:5, Funny)
I believe the previous poster meant sound as in "well-established, robust" technologies, not sound as in "audio".
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I believe the previous poster meant sound as in "well-established, robust" technologies, not sound as in "audio".
Maybe he meant both? The product the poster was advertising/recommending is definitely an audio product...
"The Kersonic KS-1 Listening NetStation provides a revolutionary way to access online audio resources."
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Regardless of the previous poster's intent, I've seen museums with speakers in plastic domes (above your head) that do an excellent job of localizing sound to one exhibit. The Fort Pitt museum in Pittsburgh has them. Solves most of the noise / annoyance problems you mentioned.
DK Interactive Dinosaur Hunter (Score:2)
You are already heading into the right direction (Score:2)
I would dump the DVD changer though and just import all content onto a big NAS array.
Does it have to be this complicated? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not just have consumer DVD players adapted for touchscreens, and stick them in kiosks? My day job involves working on a kiosk put out by a division of the Boston Museum of Science, and it's completely self-contained; so is most everything on the floor.
Burn a new DVD for the new exhibit, dump it in the kiosks near it, you're done, no finicky wiring to set up. KISS.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. I saw the original post and all I could think was "What are you actually expecting to get by running these through ethernet and setting up a central web server?"
Look, people are mostly being nice here, but if this guy is starting with the technology and doesn't think the goals are important enough to the project to share with this question, he's already doomed to failure.
It's outright unprofessional to turn a project like this into your personal toy. Build something that is sturdy and that museum e
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Sounds pretty interactive to me.
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Why not just have consumer DVD players adapted for touchscreens, and stick them in kiosks?
This sounds like a job for a PC anyway. Have a DVD player adapted for a touch screen? It seems like it would be easier to adapt DVD player software. And it makes fine sense to deliver it via web once you go to a PC... and we're back where we started!
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I'd use flash rather than a dvd, but I agree otherwise KISS. Flash simply because you have more options as to what you can do with interactivity. Sure, there have been some pretty complex DVD 'games', but theres a limit and you waste a lot of space and time duplicating effort reencoding the same thing.
A dual layer DVD is probably enough for a very long highly interactive full video presentation.
Drupal + Firefox in Kiosk mode (Score:2)
What else can I say? Use a LAMP server? Debian, or Ubuntu, or CentOS is popular in this space. In fact you really don't need to operate your own server even. There's nothing magic about your spec., and people host stuff with waaaay more than 20 terminals' in mind. Plus Drupal gives you a decent content creation/editing workflow.
Also you might find its multilingual capabilities, both for the staff as well as the visitors, to be very good.
Can I contact you for this development gig? Using Drupal on LAMP, your
Solution: Digital Signage Network (Score:1)
random suggestions (Score:4, Insightful)
Find out who is going to be creating the content that will be shown, talk to them about their needs as if you care, but really pay attention when they talk about what software they use to do the authoring. then research that and find out what formats it supports. Maybe it's all flash like you said, but if someone is expecting quicktime or silverlight, you'd better find that out now instead of six months from now after you've ordered 100 linux boxes.
The cd/dvd jukebox idea is terrible. Loading a DVD will take more time than anyone is willing to sit around and wait, furthermore what if five people at five different kiosks want to look at content located on 5 different DVDs? That level of DVD changer is way more expensive than management realizes. A big rack of sata disks under control of a NAS server is probably your best bet. Also, I would worry less about RAID and more about being able to quickly cold swap a failed NAS server.
A "would be nice" is a way for people to walk around and interact with the exhibits without having to repeatedly press the "English" or "Spanish" or "French" buttons on each and every touchscreen. I hate that. They should be able to just grab an rfid token out of a bucket and walk around...and the whole place seems to be in their native language. Hey, maybe have a mic and the kiosk listens for common words in each language and acts accordingly.
Museums swap exhibits in and out fairly often. Have some low-effort way for the curators to swap the kiosk content to match. Maybe the content is tied to an inventory number and the curators can just enter a (semi) admin password, then the inventory number and set the default content right there. the general idea is that the last thing you want is to have to spend the rest of your life assigning content to kiosks.
I'd look into something wireless for the floor sensors/big buttons, like hacking into a bluetooth mouse. Then the curators can move things around a bit, change batteries, even redo the pairing if they want to move buttons between exhibits.
If you're thinking 100 or more kiosks in the long run, I'd look into PXE booting or similar just to avoid any OS install/upgrade/patch labor being multiplied by 100.
Firewall! Last thing you want is some 2 y/o kid to type some random museum words like "nude" or "maplethorp" into a browser and get 20M pages of confusing things on google images while their prudish american parents have a little conservative republican freak out.
Best of luck with this. In spite of the tone of my comments I'm quite jealous. This sounds like one of the most fun projects anyone could ever get!
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Some good points there. I'd also find out what kind of software the exhibit designers are likely to adopt into the exhibit. Some 'cool' software used in technology museums (face recognition, games, etc) is unstable, requires dedicated servers, specific environments and is a general nightmare.
I'd go with something more than a bluetooth mouse for the buttons. Hacking in an industrial use environment often results in continuous support calls.
Microcontrollers are a great way to go for any less complex exhibit
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Thats funny, i was just discussing this today. Firefox has a really nice plugin designed by the boston museum which does a really nice kiosk and you can whitelist domains.
https://www.mozdevgroup.com/clients/bm/ [mozdevgroup.com]
Seems as though its the brooklyn museum. Doesn't matter... It works well.
Ideum = Company Recommendation (Score:4, Informative)
Hello,
I highly recommend "Ideum." (http://www.ideum.com/) They are based near Albuquerque, New Mexico and specialize in EXACTLY that sort of thing. I interviewed with this company during a job search I went through a few months ago, but after receiving an offer I decided to work with another small company that provided a better offer instead. Ideum has some cool table top, and desk top museum exhibits in place for major museums already. The founder, Jim Spadaccini, is an extremely friendly and nice guy.
They have a general software framework in place built using ActionScript and C++ to make building custom, interactive, touch-screen programs very fast. Their process was quite impressive, and seemed well designed to segregate the work between the hard core coder and the hard core artist in order to quickly make an impressive exhibit. One of the coolest products they were developing was called "GestureWorks." It is designed to make programming multi-touch displays very easy in ActionScript. As a programmer, I can add an eventListener to an object for "throw away" or for "click and hold."
If you give them a call, tell Jim that Brian Stinar referred you! If he gets busy enough, maybe I'll get a consulting or contracting gig on the side out of it.
I hope this help,
-Brian J. Stinar-
Hire a Multimedia Company (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't hire an IT company. This is not primarily an IT job.
You want someone who can design interfaces, design interesting exhibits and instructional interactivities, and who can work with technical people to make it happen.
IPTV type idea (Score:1)
Currently, I use VLC to stream a ch
Don't use DVDs! (Score:2)
Other than that I'm not sure what's so hard about your project. Where I use to work had a museum, [broadinstitute.org] and they set something up something similar using multiple large flat-panels displays linked to one another with several remote controls [broadinstitute.org] for user interaction. If you contact them I'm s
UK Natural History Museum (Score:1, Informative)
You need to talk to the folks at the Natural History Museum in the UK as they have just done what you are trying to achieve for their new Darwin Center. No need to reinvent the wheel, learn from those that have been there and done that. Pay them a visit and see what works and what does not.
NOT FIREFOX! Wrong tool!!! (Score:1)
Firefox is too easy for some clever punk to trick into closing down or to install plugins into though it probably does have a Kiosk mode switch but I am too lazy to Google that.
HP Thin Clients (Score:4, Informative)
UTCs (was Re:HP Thin Clients) (Score:2)
thin clients are OK but ultra-thin clients are likely better - see for example:
You get low-cost screens, the ability to add a user-tagged card that carries session info with them, and a few other advantages.
Not sure about the touch-screen aspect, as I've never looked into that.
have fun!
DNA Lounge (Score:2, Informative)
The DNA Lounge in San Francisco, run by Mozilla and XEmacs' one-time developer and hacker Jamie Zawinski, has done some similar things. You can check out their code and documentation here:
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/ [dnalounge.com]
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk/ [dnalounge.com]
In short, he's created secure Linux internet kiosks, streaming broadcasts, cameras, and scripts to automate much of it - in short, what you're trying to do but in nightclub form.
I'm biased (Score:2)
Unfortunately, you say touch-screen kiosk, and I realize that I manufacture something meant to be better than them (super attractive, reliable, durable, small, light-weight, insanely powerful, run for ages without any maintenance). But you're not here for a sales pitch, so I'll just declare the conflict of interest up-front.
FireFox in kiosk mode is fine, but like any browser in kiosk mode, you're a fewer layers deeper than you need to be, so the reliability kind of goes to hell. It's just software running
One word: Maintenance (Score:5, Informative)
I can't count the number of museums I've visited where the whizbang kiosks/interactive displays/demonstrations were out of order. From the lowliest county historical society exhibition to the Smithsonian in DC. Whatever you do, keep an up-to-date set of troubleshooting and repair procedures as you go along. Something easy to follow so that even a simpleton volunteer will be able to get the thing back up and running.
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And I would give it -1, thus nature balances itself.
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I have created a few installations like you're talking about and I have to agree that this is the most important point. You have to design everything with the idea that a bunch of 6 year olds are going to be banging on it for several hours straight everyday. And likely, noone from the museum staff will come by to check it out but maybe once a week. If you're looking at using buttons, I suggest going to a company that makes elevator button panels. Those things are indestructible.
Also, you have to remember to
Go with Kiosk Enclosures (Score:4, Informative)
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I'll second this.
I worked in the exhibit department of a science museum for several years, and it's simply amazing how much abuse everything gets.
We did most of our exhibit building in-house, because contractors, even exhibit design firms, just couldn't be convinced of how bullet-proof museum exhibits need to be.
Besides making sure that you have robust infrastructure, make sure that your kiosks are designed for a war zone. And make sure that you have lots of spare parts.
Non-contact interactive exhibit (Score:3, Informative)
A nice mix of wow factor and secure hardware (except for the poor wall).
For the life of me, I can't remember what the system
Stuff at museums with my kids (Score:1)
I remember the best times were had with things we could *do*, not just look at static pictures with a voice-over. At the Powerhouse museum in Sydney they had a senses exhibit where you stuck your hand in a box and try to work out what was in it. At another museum we put together a full size 2d dinosaur puzzle that was 2M high.
How about doing something with the OLPC / Sugar? They could hand them out at the entrance and collect them on the way out, why have static stations? You could use them to find stuff at
Email me (Score:1)
Linux? No. (Score:2)
iPhone (Score:1)
Some advice (Score:2, Interesting)
From my experience there are a couple of things you need to do:
Go central. If it needs to be managed later on, you don't want ton run around swapping DVD's just to find out someone made a typo and do it all over again ( not talking about the enviromental choice of needing to burn disks on every content change)
Plan for
Museum with similar interactive-stuff setup (Score:1)
Scala (Score:1)
BrightSign (Score:1)
Shameless Plug for Silex (Score:1)
Stop projecting onto the architecture (Score:2)
"I'd love to do this in Linux"
STOP: You're failing already.
Don't project your wishes onto the solution space. F'er example, WTF is wrong with their DVD soln?
You _don't_ know!
Because you've not captured the GOALS and mapped them into REQUIREMENTS, framed by CONSTRAINTS. Then, and only then, start thinking of possible SOLUTION ARCHITECTURES.
And first, make sure you don't have a wicked problem. (See http://www.poppendieck.com/wicked.htm [poppendieck.com])
HW: x86, Client: OSX, UI: Flash, ServerOS: Linux (Score:2)
I'd go around about the way you planned. Flash is actually very good for this sort of thing. I'd also look into Air, maybe that's viable for this. I'd be carefull with linux clients though, Flash and the Linux rendering stack don't allways play well together.
Use Linux for the server and look into FOSS streaming servers like Red5. osflash [osflash.org] should be your next stop.
See if you can go with OSx on MacMinis for the kiosk systems, they'd be my safest bet and you can do neat stuff with the IR remote and some extra s
excellent opportunity (Score:2)
congratulations on both the chance and vision. i think this is a great opportunity to tap into opensource community as well as using this as an advertising. geek opensource museum ! ;)
i would almost visit spain for such a thing alone
personally, i would stay away from proprietary tech like flash. you wouldn't want to get into trouble because of some choices adobe makes in the next version or simply because you stumble upon a bug in the current one.
i actually have photos of a museum system that was based on w
digital signage (Score:1)
Form follows function (Score:2, Interesting)
Believe it or not, the function is the most interesting part of design something new.
I've designed both AV systems and content management systems but to this point have found no pliable way to fit the "dream system" into my work.. None of the above recommendations are going to be a solution on their own, you need to design a 'system' made up of complimentary components to create something that is greater than the sum of it's parts. Be it turn-key or bespoke. the 'use flash/silverlight' question and others l
BimImpress Ltd multimedia systems for museums etc (Score:1)
check out our homepage
http://www.bitimpress.com/ [bitimpress.com]
We can provide any kind of multimedia solution based on Linux (or alternatively OS X or Windows too, but we recommend Linux).
The software can be open source or closed source. We can adapt existing software solutions too if it makes sense.
The project needs to be analized on an individual basis. We provide t
Vertice from Mexico.. (Score:1)
Hi, I work for this guys http://www.idv.com.mx/ [idv.com.mx]www.idv.com.mx they have a streaming solutions and I know they can create the solution for you.. you migth even get the full control of the software...
And they are no were near the price of usa or europe soluions... XD
floor outlets are trouble (Score:1)
Linux Interactive control system (Score:1)
Drupal + modules (Score:2)
I can't comment on the hardware part, but what you say is certainly doable.
If you go the CMS route, Drupal [drupal.org] is a very powerful, flexible and extensible CMS. It also has a couple of add ons that facilitate this. For example, there is the kiosk module [drupal.org], and the kiosk theme module [drupal.org] (I am the author of the latter). These are in use at some museums already (e.g. Science Museum of Minnesota and Arts Institute of Chicago).
Using a CMS will allow you do do many things, such as interactive quizzes, polls and surveys, di
Social Kiosk (Score:1)
ArtBabble, a web-based museum video community (Score:1)
Linux, Flash, etc. (Score:1)
SteadyState (Score:1)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx [microsoft.com]
- Zotdogg
Don't use web technologies... (Score:2)
at least not exclusively.
Why? Because the web is a pull only method... and therefor it is up to the client when and how the data is displayed. This is great for interactive systems, but what if one exhibit requires that each of the screens in the room be synchronized to music playing on the overhead sound system. Good luck doing that with web technologies.
I would recommend that you run HDMI and USB over Cat6 to each location. Then you have the flexibility of connecting any device you wish to the displays
Go real X terminals and standards (Score:2)
Go X terminals (LTSP or omei ðe like) and SVG. Be happy! No need for clients, worryi about clients or ervers, or proprietary file formats or protocols.
Digital Signage Software is the Key (Score:1)
This industry has been around for almost 20 years but people in the Museum and Entertainment industries are only recently starting to realize the potential this software represents to simplifying your everyday lives.
Don't waste your time home-bre
Reduce complexity (Score:1)
Radical idea (Score:2)
I know one media art museum that has a video library, state of the art 10 years ago and still useful but I could make some recommendations. I am talking about the NTT ICC (Intercommunication Center) and I maybe remember it in a distorted fashion, and it was reduced in size too, but it is at the New National Opera at Opera City, Hatsudai, Tokyo. I haven't been there lately but check it out at http://www.ntticc.or.jp/index_e.html [ntticc.or.jp]
1. The museum has a big, very expensive SGI machine (20 cpus? I forget) used for
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P.S. If you go to the ICC page you can see their Metaverse / Hive project, an open video archive. I think some links are Japanese but they have recordings of seminars too. I too dislike the disc changer idea but I don't know how much money you all have. If possible do as some other posters say, bring much high bandwidth cabling around and also put in clients with much horsepower. I was thinking of quad Mac Pro with large screen at each location. The huge fast SAN someone mentioned also sounds scrumptious. I
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P.P.S. Also I would recommend extending the wireless network to the seminar room. It would allow a computer assisted meeting (CAM) where audience could ask questions instead of just 1 or 2 people and 1 mic then time's up, people could pose questions to that day/time's seminar blog or to a CAM system and a moderator could pick good questions, or the speakers could also type answers, or follow up later. It would be very cool. CAM used to be too expensive for large numbers of people (I once propose one for 200
Re:And we're supposed to do your job? (Score:5, Insightful)
what an assanine response. seeking advice is a sign of humility and merely indicates hes not a pompass ass-hat. its people that assume they know the best way of doing something and damn all the naysayers that find themselves up to their neck in a project where they failed to recognize all the considerations. thats a foolish way to do work. Hes got a fair idea of waht he wants to do and is looking to make sure he doesnt make an epic blunder. his employers arent tech savvy so hes likely under budgeted and is also likely a staff of one. not a good way to cover your bases
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This guy has a means of asking thousands of people for advice all at once. Should he: ...Oooh... Tough decision, eh!
a) ask for advice
b) not ask for advice