Maven Mapper's

I was viewing a WebEx presentation from Mindjet this morning.  A demo of their new MindManager Product Version 7, which officially launches in about an hour.

While I was watching the demo, I was listening in through the WebEx audio streamer tool.  Normally, WebEx recommends that you call in separately through a conference line.  That wasn't an option for me today.

I was in a noisy environment (sporadic noises), my cell phone was charging after a night of travelling and talking, and the available land line was one of those peculiar models without a mute button.  Plus, I searched high and low and couldn't find the WebEx instructions for muting a call with the keypad.  I knew it was possible, just couldn't find it when I needed it.

Halfway through the presentation, the streaming audio began to stutter and stall and cough and have fits.  I was connected  through a wireless connection and in circumstances like these I always blame my own equipment first.  Must be the wireless card, the wireless router, it would all work better if I were manually connected with network cables, must be my DSL connection, my DSL provider.

Services like WebEx have trained us over the years to trouble shoot problems like these by assuming there's something wrong with our systems first.  Nice of them right?

I can run Skype just fine on my computer without problems where the streaming sound is lost for 5 minutes at a time, why can't WebEx get up to snuff with my computer, system, cables, connections etc.