NetMeeting SpeedDial

(credit for some of the following information goes to Bruce Winter)

If you're using Microsoft's NetMeeting (which is also free) then you might be interested in how you can use DynamIP to automatically update your Speed Dial file. This is particularly useful if your web pages contain links to your Speed Dial file so that people can call you by simply clicking on an icon in their browser (hey, not everybody wants to be listed on those ULS servers...). On the other hand, the combination MS Internet Explorer and NetMeeting version 2.x allows for a more elegant solution with the tag callto.

* note that the above is only a sample (the link does NOT work!)

Here's how to do it:

1. Download the file NetMeetingCNF.txt which looks as follows:
   [ConferenceShortcut]
   ConfName=NOT.ON.LINE.NOW
   Address=NOT.ON.LINE.NOW
   CallFlags=65539
   Transport=1
   `
2. Put this file into your DynamIP directory (it could actually be anywhere, but let's assume that you put it into the DynamIP directory for the sake of this example).
   `
3. Start DynamIP and define a new connection handle that looks as follows:
   
   The entries for all the other fields are to be filled in the same way you would do it for any other file you want to upload. Do NOT check HTTP Server and FTP Server and leave the DateTime field alone as well. Note that you can change the entry for IP, but then you must also edit the file NetMeetingCNF.txt and adapt the entries for ConfName and Address accordingly. Don't forget to check the Active box!
   `
4. Now you only have to add a bit of HTML code to your web pages (basically a link to the file SpeedDial.cnf). The following code produces the example above and assumes that the icon (netmeetingicon.gif) and the file SpeedDial.cnf are both located in the same directory as your web page on the server:

Note that you don't have to upload web pages containing the above links every time you go online/offline. It's the file SpeedDial.cnf that contains the relevant information (and hence you should upload that one whenever your IP address changes). That's the reason why you had to define a new connection handle in step 3 above.

Anybody who has NetMeeting v2.0 (or newer) and MS Internet Explorer 3.0 or IE4 installed will now be able to call you directly from their browser. With Netscape, unfortunately, this will only work if the web server that hosts your pages is set up such that it will treat files with the extension CNF properly (MIME type), otherwise you will just get a text file...

If this method does not work properly (e.g. because the web server that hosts your pages does not support the extension CNF) you might want to try the alternative method with the tag callto.