Internet 2 -Faster, Better ...................................and you can't use it!

Internet 2 represents an alternative Internet network, built upon a 100GB network backbone. It provides a high-speed packet network to a consortium of educational institutions. The network is built upon the Abilene Network, a high performance fiber backbone network. It is a private network in the sense that it operates outside of the public Internet traffic, and it does not operate in the same peer-to-peer fashion as the public internet. It is not, however, isolated from the public at large, as members can provide alternative access to many of the resources through the public internet.

The development of this network began in 1996 by EDUCAUSE and was formally organized as UCAID (University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development in 1997. The name Internet2 became a registered trademark.

The network is hosted at Indiana University, and provides its members with high-speed access to the shared resources available at the educational institutions, as well as the ability to share high-bandwidth applications at a high speed, without having to compete for available bandwith on the public internet.

I am looking forward to seeing this network in action during our collaborative meeting.

Tools of the Collabo-Trade

We are working toward collaboration, utilizing both video and audio over the Internet.
Sharing etherspace with musicians, writers, dancers, artists over miles of Cat5 cables, routers, switches, hubs, network cards standing between our players. Collaborating with those not physically next to us. How is this to be accomplished?

I wish to present a number of "Tools of the Trade" that have been developed over the years that facilitate the collaborative efforts of primarily musicians through the Internet. I will stay within the range of free, trial-based, downloadable products that I feel encompass both the main players of Operating Systems, namely Windows and Macs. We should be careful not to make the assumption that all participants are using the same operating systems; this is a very common error that is best addressed BEFORE any collaborative jamboree takes form!

Tool #1:
Ninjam

What is it?
"NINJAM is a program to allow people to make real music together via the Internet. Every participant can hear every other participant. Each user can also tweak their personal mix to his or her liking."

The Client Software which is downloaded to the user's computer, allows the user to connect to a participating server, set the Metronome (BPM)

The Client:




NINJAM compresses the recorded audio, thereby reducing drastically transmission time and the ever-present delay issues which are inherent in attempting anytype of online, real-time collaboration. Any type of input is supported; live singing, guitars, synthesizers, pianos, etc. etc. If your computer can record it, then you can jam with it.

Since the inherent latency of the Internet prevents true realtime synchronization of the real-time jamming, and playing and dealing with the subsequent latency is weird , NINJAM provides a solution by making the delay (and the weirdness) much longer.

A free download which supports both Windows and Mac platforms



Thomas Dolby Podcast Interview re Online Collaboration Experience