From 10-10:30 there will be introductions, an explanation of what is going on behind the scenes to make this event possible, and further details about what will happen later in the day.

This is your chance to say hello to the world. Show us your face or faces, or your room full of people! But be ready to speak up quickly when called. Tell us who you are and where and say something interesting in 10 seconds or less. We will use the registrants list on the web site, so you know when to be ready.

There will be door prizes awarded to registrants based on a random drawing. To save time, the drawing has already been done, and we will tell you if you are a prize winner when we call you in the roll call.

BUT you must be present to win. If you do not answer the roll call to receive your prize, the prize will be awarded to someone else.

The slides from some of the speakers will be available on the web pages, as hot links from their listings in the Agenda section.

New video streaming sites are being added as we speak, so check the Video Streaming section often.

We are about to embark on the largest Internet video conference ever held. You are all making history today. Here's hoping we don't have a meltdown somewhere! (10.3.01)

2. The Registrants page is now up to date, with lists of locations and contact information for all participants.

4. The T.120 application sharing MCU is in operation. See the description in the announcements section. This will enable you to see the slides of the speakers. If you have trouble with this, contact Vincent Celindro 847-467-3150 vcelindro@northwestern.edu

5. Attractive maps of the MCU topology and participant distribution around the world are now (or soon will be) available in the Maps section of the web pages.

6. The entire I2 conference is being broadcast this week by various methods. See www.internet2.edu

7. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED IN ALL THE REHEARSALS HAS BEEN PEOPLE WHO DO NOT MUTE THEIR MICROPHONES. DO IT !!!!!!!!!!!!! YES THIS MEANS YOU !!!!!

8. REMEMBER. NO MICROSOFT METMEETING. NO CU-SEEME. DESPITE THIS REQUIREMENT, PEOPLE STILL TRY TO USE THESE THINGS IN THE MEGACONFERENCE. IF YOU DO, YOU ADVERSELY AFFECT OTHER PEOPLE, AND YOU WILL NOT KNOW IT!!

9. Please connect to the Megaconference between 9 amd 10 am CDT (GMT-5). Not before and not after. We will start at 10:30, and we need some time to solve any problems which develop.

If you HAVE been contacted by an MCU manager, then follow whatever connection information has been provided to you to use that MCU. This applies mostly to participants outside the USA. If you HAVE NOT been contacted by an MCU manager, then do one of the following to call in to the rehearsal:

If you are NOT part of ViDeNet, then set your gatekeeper address to 192.148.244.115

Then dial one of the following conference IDs. Please start from the top of the list, and when you get a good connection, stay there.

If you ARE part of ViDeNet, leave your gatekeeper address as it is, and dial one of these numbers, in this order:

Different organizations have different exit prefixes, so you must find that out locally.

If you HAVE been contacted by an MCU manager, then follow whatever connection information has been provided to you to use that MCU. This applies mostly to participants outside the USA.

If you HAVE NOT been contacted by an MCU manager, then do one of the following to call in to the rehearsal:

If you are NOT part of ViDeNet, then set your gatekeeper address to 192.148.244.115

Then dial one of the following conference IDs. Please start from the top of the list, and when you get a good connection, stay there.

If you ARE part of ViDeNet, leave your gatekeeper address as it is, and dial one of these numbers, in this order:

Different organizations have different exit prefixes, so you must find that out locally.

The T.120 system which enables you to see the slides of the speakers continues to improve. Please use it during the rehearsal. Instructions are on the announcements section of the web pages.

THE POPCORN HAS ARRIVED! This special effect for the Virtual Picnic event of the Megaconference should be arriving at all your locations, assuming you ordered it. It is in a beautiful container, with a special Megaconference label. Definitely something you will want to keep on your shelf as a momento of this event. Ordering instructions are in the announcements section of the web pages. I urge you to order it even if might not arrive in time, just for the momento value.

A new event has been added to the Megaconference. At 12:00 CDT (GMT-5) on Wednesday, we will have a special roll call of all registered participants. This is your chance to stand up and be recognized before the world! Because there are so many registrants, it will have to go quickly. You will be called in alphabetical order by institution name. This list is now on the web pages in the Registrants section.

Please follow along with the web list and keep your finger ready on the mute button when we get close to you. When you are called upon, please unmute, and speak up loudly and clearly and tell us your name, institution or organization name, city, state(if USA) and country. Then say anything you want to for about 10 seconds. It could be about yourself, or your organization, or about H.323, or anything! We want it to be interesting and entertaining for everyone else.

The rehearsal Friday will be done in the same way; you will be called in alphabetical order by organization. Those who have already been recognized in previous rehearsals will not be called. Note that the list on the web does not have the latest registrations, but the list we will use for the roll call will be.

All participants outside the USA and all the assocated MCUs are to join the rehearsal on Friday, as it is the only chance we will have to work out problems. Of course we also need all USA participants who have not yet been in a rehearsal.

Some of the email addresses on the registration forms that people have filled out are incorrect, and we have been getting buried with bounced messages. So much so that the listserv which handles the Megacon list reached its daily limit and stopped forwarding. We have reset it.

Any bouncing addresses will simply be deleted from the list. In the rehearsal and in the Megaconference (and in the I2 Virtual Sessions), if some participant causes exraneous noise or other problems, we must disconnect them immediately. In such a huge video network as we are putting together for this event, everyone MUST be very careful about muting their microphone etc.

The volume of email received here about the Megaconference has become so large that we cannot answer it all. Sorry. Most questions can be answered by reading the information on the web pages. The Megaconference will be sent out via streaming video, in various formats. Let everyone know that they can watch the proceedings, even if they cannot participate interactively. Details later.(9.27.01)

In answer to Alan's question about the source file, it is in quark format. If anyone has the necessary software to process a quark file, and would like to get it, send me email and I will have it sent to you via email. (9.26.01)

There are still 54 organizations that have not participated in either of the first two rehearsals. If you are one of these, PLEASE do so in the final rehearsal.

The FINAL REHEARSAL is Friday Sept 28, 11am to 1 pm Eastern Daylight Time. If you are sure that you were recognized in one of the other rehearsals, you need not be there on Friday. However you are most welcome to attend and listen to the discussion and hear any announcements and ask any questions.

The REGISTRATION DEADLINE is Friday Sept 28 at 9am Eastern Daylight Time. Be sure you have registered by then.

Be sure you read all the previous announcements, in the Announcements section of the web site.

Be sure you read and follow the instructions in the Etiquette section of the web site.

Both the Accord and RADVision MCUs worked flawlessly in this rehearsal. An Accord engineer was here to assist, and he replaced two boards and installed a software upgrade prior to the rehearsal.

We just today before the rehearsal upgraded to network connection between the MCUs and Abilene from 100 Mbits/sec, to 1 Gbit/sec. But the rehearsals (50 sites) have not generated a huge load, which would be comparable to what we had in the previous load tests (100 sites). And the Megaconference (200 sites?) will be an even bigger load than the load tests were. We are definitely pushing the envelope here!

The T.120 slide viewing system was a partial success. About 20 sites got connected and there were various technical problems. Some changes are being made in the MCU at Northwestern which supports this service, and we believe it will work better next time. We need more people to use it! It is available continuously now for your testing. Please follow the previous instructions (see web pages) and use it by yourself to be sure it works for you. And then we will load it heavily during the Friday rehearsal.

You have seen the announcement about the now-virtual Internet2 members meeting. The H.323 community will be heavily involved in this virtual meeting. Theer are tests for the Megaconference going on every day this week, and the virtual meeting will run every day next week. Watch the Internet2 web site www.internet2.edu for details of the virtual meeting. (9.25.01)

Then dial one of the following conference IDs. Please start from the top of the list, and when you get a good connection, stay there.

There are now about 120 organizations registered, so this should give us adequate capacity for the rehearsal.

If you ARE part of ViDeNet, leave your gatekeeper address as it is, and dial one of these numbers, in this order:

Different organizations have different exit prefixes, so you must find that out locally. (9.25.01)

12. We will be doing simultaneous T.120 application sharing, to enable you to see the slides and other materials used by the speakers who do not send it as part of their video. So if you want to see these materials, you need to have a PC running Microsoft NetMeeting, and connect it to the central T.120 server at Northwestern University. That is a RADVision ViaIP, which can in principle handle 100 users of T.120. We will announce more detailed instructions later. But please prepare for this now by having a PC available, and hooking it to your projector or whatever. It may be that you will have to have the most recent version of NetMeeting. Note that this use of NetMeeting has nothing to do with its video conferencing option.

Note that this has never been done before, and nobody knows what problems might develop when we get lots of users connected. And now here are the details from Larry Amiot at Northwestern, that you need to do this:

Use only Netmeeting 3.01.You will want to register with the Northwestern gatekeeper. Bring up Netmeeting and go to the "Tools/Options" menu. Then select "Advanced Calling". Check "Use gatekeeper to place calls". Enter the gatekeeper IP address (129.105.253.250). Then check "Log on using my account name" and enter a "1" followed by the last five digits of your telephone number. Go back to the main screen and select "Call/New Call". Enter the number to call as 711234. When the connection is made, click "OK" and you should be in the T.120 data sharing session. Do not share your documents with others. The presenters will share their documents with the audience. (9.24.01)

1. Be sure to refresh your browser when loking at the web pages. The info there changes during every day.

2. Order your popcorn for the Virtual Picnic. See the earlier announcement.

3. MUTE your microphone when not talking, in Software. Several people had open microphones during the rehearsal.

5. We now have 100 organizations registered. We will soon pass last year's record. It is NOT too late to register. Please do so now.

6. The Megaconference will be sent out via streaming video in addition to H.323, for non-interactive viewers. If you can provide streaming services, please do so, and send me all the information that a viewer of your stream needs to view it. This will be posted on the web pages.

7. The next rehearsal is Tuesday Sept 25 at 11 am EDT. The final rehearsal is Friday Sept 28 at 11 am EDT. Please be there, especially if you were not in the first rehearsal.

8. On the days of the above rehearsals, do not connect before the allotted time, because a different rehearsal will be in progress. That is for the speakers.

9. There is now a very nice poster of the Megaconference schedule on the web pages, in the Map section. You may wish to print it and post it at your location.

10. All registrants in the USA will use the central Commons MCUs (except for a few cases we have handled separately). This is the same address numbers as used previously.

All registrants outside the USA are hereby assigned to other MCUs, located in or near your country. The managers of all those MCUs are being sent lists of the people they will handle, and they are to contact you and test with you as soon as possible. Use those MCUs in all future tests and in the Megaconference.

11. The first rehearsal was a success, with 40 organizations participating, from all over the world, and as far away as China. This leaves 60 of you yet to join us for testing. The load was not as great as during our previous load tests. The RADVision MCU performed fine. The Accord MCU had one card software failure, which dumped its users off, but was restored soon thereafter. Accord will be here for future tests.

12. We will be doing simultaneous T.120 application sharing, to enable you to see the slides and other materials used by the speakers who do not send it as part of their video. So if you want to see these materials, you need to have a PC running Microsoft NetMeeting, and connect it to the central T.120 server at Northwestern University. That is a RADVision ViaIP, which can in principle handle 100 users of T.120. We will announce more detailed instructions later. But please prepare for this now by having a PC available, and hooking it to your projector or whatever. It may be that you will have to have the most recent version of NetMeeting. Note that this use of NetMeeting has nothing to do with its video conferencing option.

Only the in-person portion that was to be held at the Internet2 members meeting in Austin, Texas has been cancelled. In fact we may now see an even greater use of H.323 to broadcast some of the other events on Tuesday.(9.21.01)

Please be sure to register if you have not already done so. We will use the registrations up to one hour before the rehearsal for the rehearsal tomorrow. But even if you don't make that time, register anyway and you will be in the next rehearsal. (9.19.01)

One of the exciting new events in this year's Megaconference is the World's First Virtual Picnic. Since this involves some advance preparation on your part, I am announcing it separately here.

A project is being developed to assist farmers and consumer groups in finding one another and in facilitating direct food orders among them, using H.323 video conferencing. This non-profit project is headed up by Benjamin Thompson, and described at www.smallfarmnetwork.com .

During the Megaconference, Benjamin will describe this project, accompanied by several real farmers from across the USA. When talking to prospective consumer groups and coops, the farmers typically send ahead of time samples of their crops, so the viewers can be eating the crop as they watch the farmer describe how he grows it and processes it.

For the Megaconference, they have chosen to illustrate this project by the use of a special heirloom variety of popcorn. Arrangements have been made for you to order a special Megaconference commemorative tin (one gallon) of this popcorn, which is specially labeled for the Megaconference and includes an information sheet about the project. The price has been kept low (about $10, plus shipping) to allow as many to participate as possible. This is of course completely optional on your part, but it will increase the realism of the event, and will be a lot of fun, just like eating popcorn at the movies! The popcorn is already popped in the tin. You just eat it during this part of the Megaconference. You can tell the farmer who grew it how well you like it. Then afterwards you can keep the empty tin on your shelf as a memento of the Megaconference.

Call For Participation (8.31.01)

Megaconference III will be held Oct 3, 2001 from 10:30 am to at least 7 pm Central USA Daylight time.

Everyone in the world with H.323 equipment is invited to participate.

Megaconference III is organized similarly to Megaconference II, in that there will be a series of live presentations from authors all over the world, all brought to you over the Internet using H.323 video conferencing technology. They will be presenting on many interesting topics:

	World Bank satellite-based distance learning network.
	K-12 students in Germany interact with scientists in the Arctic.
	How we do H.323 on my campus.
	The world's first Virtual Picnic (much more about this later!!).
	How the Internet2 SEGP program brings K-12 to Abilene.
	Thinkquest - students with global projects.
	Learning and the use of video, and satellite links.
	How does Quality-of-Service affect video? Real live demo!