Adventures in Yugma

This post is devoted entirely to the Digital Lab group assignment. So, if you were looking for something fantastic I'll have to send you to a different post. For this Lab I explored the universe of web conferencing and some of the tools that make it possible. It was quite an adventure that lead me all around the world wide web and then back home. Need a way to call, video chat, screen and file share? Learn more, For those people, mostly business types, who want a FREE way to send files, screens, messages, and interact face to face in real times across borders, Yugma is the path.
 

Yugma's Opening Screen

 Yugma is designed to connect several computers and screens to each other under the direction of the host, and then the screen each sees can be controlled by the presenter. This allows the group to stay together and be able to all see and understand even if their individual GPS coordinates put them across cities, counties, states, countries, oceans, or whole continents. There are of course other web conferencing tools, however my personal issue with these, is that as a starving-student, they have a price attached. Additionally, the tools provided for free on Yugma match with many of those that can be bought. The only thing worth paying for with these services is security.





One of my favorite features is the annotation tools which allow the presenter to draw on their screen to point out interesting features. This includes a whiteboard option, which is essentially a painting tool that can be seen by all users without opening a whole new program.

Without a doubt this one of the best programs of its kind, that has a low monthly price of  $0!

Now as cool and fascinating this all is, is it really helpful? Does it actually do some good in the world? Well maybe someone could teach it to automobile dealers so they didn't have to fly to Washington DC to ask for bail out money. But other than that? I think that it does do at least some good, especially through allowing people to contact each other across borders. This idea of connection relates directly to the class discussion on social connections, and how more and more often these connections are made over the internet. I also believe that it could relate to the changes that we see today that are parallels to the advent of printing, in Europe. 
The age of printing in Europe brought with it changes in just about ever facet of life. Some of the primary changes included access and authority.

Access: Previous to print any copy of a book had to be handwritten, a process which could literally take a life time to complete. Because of the speed at which books were made relatively few people had access to the books. Even in our modern era books have a limiting access because in order to be read the physical book had to be in the same place as the person. However, we can see the parallel of accessibility with the internet, where anyone (with a computer and internet access) can reach the same information no matter what part of the world they are in. Furthermore, programs such as Yugma, allow people of all different types to communicate and "be on the same page". It allows people to connect in the same way as if they actually met each other face to face, and form relationships that transcend borders.

Authority: A change in authority can also be seen with the advent of printing. Previously, only the clergy had had access to the books, and they had been relied upon to interpret the books for everyman. But now everyman could read the writings for themselves, and thus the people could keep the clergy in line. Additionally, if multiple copies of a book were going to be printed and distributed each version had to agree or else the authority of the book was lost. Thus it fell to scholars such as Aldus, to collect versions and rewrite them for printing, so that the available version was the reliable authority. These changes thereby brought about standardization of books, including page numbers, and other formatting aspects. The world wide web has brought about similar changes and challenges to authority. These challenges can be seen in countries where the government attempts to censure materials consumed by their citizens. As seen with the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, these countries try to keep out materials that teach against their government, and what they want for their people. But ultimately, as materials become more widely available the fall of censure, seems inevitable.Connections formed through the internet, and maintained through programs such as Yugma, can help to break down the barriers the world puts up, similar to how the Berlin wall came down from the people learning of a better lifestyle.

Yugma, and programs like it, including the internet itself, can pose problems to those who don't know how to use them. So to help the world out a little, I decided to teach Yugma to Dalton, and my favorite brother. Teaching the program to Dalton was a good experience because it tested how much I knew about the program myself. Trying to teach my brother, however, was a total different story. It turns out that he knew a lot about the idea already, and was able to help teach me about the similarities between Yugma and Skype.

After exploring both of them with him, we found that they have many similarities, especially in features such as screen sharing. We then used this to look at  my online Calculus homework together. However, despite the many good things about Skype, it lacks two potentially important things, the ability to connect several screens, as in more than 3, and the features that allow the presenter to point things out on the screen such as the pen and highlighter. Overall, discovering Yugma and the similar features has been an exciting experience, and I am eager to share it with anyone who wants to know and cares to listen!