IT with Passion

The new version of Skype (4.1.0.179) provides the ability to share part or full screen in conversations. Screen sharing has always been tricky for me as I have been using commercial products such as WebEx.

WebEx is a bit of an overkill for casual use plus their pay-per-use tariff is also expensive. An alternative to WebEx was to use TightVNC, but again it was too much hassle opening the firewall port for the VNC traffic.

Using built-in Windows applications such NetMeeting and Windows Meeting Space was a problem as NetMeeting is missing in Vista and Windows Meeting Space only works in Vista. So I think this new feature in Skype will be very handy and very helpful for academics and small businesses that require screen sharing for free and with minimum setup.

How to use it?

From the Call menu select the Share Your Screen option, which presents two options Share Full Screen or Share Selection. The Share Full Screen option provides the ability to share any of the screens currently connected. Good for sharing a secondary monitor for a presentation

After selecting the Share Selection option, a rectangle is displayed on the screen, which can be resized

Click the start screen sharing button and the rectangle border becomes red indicating that the red area is now shared with the participant in the conversation

This is the view that other participants see, they can click the full screen option for better resolution