Fuze Meeting is a free online meeting service allows sharing of video in high definition (HD) for up to 15 people.  Adobe Connect allows considerably less participants in its free online meeting offering.  It also expands online meetings to smartphones such as the Apple iPhone, Blackberry and, soon, Windows Mobile devices.

For those familiar with Adobe Connect’s interface, using Fuze Meeting web interface will be a natural transition.  After you’ve created your free account, a simple straight-forward process, and logged into your account, you’re taken to the Meeting page which displays a dashboard type page.  There are other pages for maintaining contact information and viewing your account information.  On the Meeting page, there are tabs for viewing Upcoming Meetings, Past Meetings, and your Content Library which stores your pictures, videos and other files (such as documents, spread sheets and presentations) to be used in your meeting.

The Quickstart section allows you to start a new meeting right away or schedule a meeting.  Starting a new meeting takes you to a meeting page which displays your online (web) attendees, your call attendees, and a chat box for IM’ing attendees.  If someone attends your meeting that you don’t want in the meeting, you can simply remove them.  Audio attendees may be fetched, however this option is disabled for the free trial accounts.  Fetching an attendee means Fuze will call the phone number or contact you provide to have them attend the meeting.  Call attendees can be muted and unmuted singly or en masse.  The phone number of Call attendees is displayed for each attendee.  This allows you to determine if someone is attending the meeting that should not be and remove them from the meeting.  Call attendees hear music until the host dials into the conference.  The Quickstart tab on the new meeting page allows you to share your desktop (this option is “Coming Soon”), add content (files and whiteboard) to the meeting or send e-mail invitiations.  The Info menu pops up a box showing the meeting URL and dial in information.  To end the meeting, simply click the End Meeting menu.

The Contacts page allows you to organize the people you invite to meetings.  You can create and delete groups of contacts, create and delete contacts, see all contacts and search for specific contacts.  Contacts can be imported from various avenues including Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Outlook Express.  Contacts can also be exported to a CSV (comma separated value) formatted file.

My Account allows you to view and modify information about your account including your subscription type, billing information (if you upgrade your account), contact information, password, e-mail invitiations options (awkwardly labeled as Email Notification Options even though it deals with invitation options), audio meeting options, IM options (Fuze can be used as a web IM client for popular IM services), and some optional applications (which are not required to use Fuze, but just enhance the experience for some users).

The iPhone app allows you create an account or login using your existing Fuze account.  Once logged in you can see your contacts (from the Contacts page mentioned above), chat with attendees, view meetings, start a new meeting, view/modify your info and change various settings (including server, IM, Contact List/Status options, and Notification options).

If you use Fuze Meeting, please drop us a comment about this service.

To get more information and sign up for your free account, visit https://www.fuzemeeting.com/ .

I purchased the Sansa e250 2GB model for under $100 from Amazon. SanDisk currently offers other models with 4 GB, 6 GB, and 8 GB of built-in storage. The main advantage of these beefier models is that you can watch longer videos. This is because you can only view videos from the internal storage, not from a microSD memory card. Other than that difference, a 2GB model can be expanded indefinitely via the microSD expansion slot.

I purchased a 2 GB microSD (on sale at CompUSA for $40) which turns my 2 GB Sansa into a 4 GB model. MicroSD memory cards, also known as transflash cards, are VERY small SD (secure digital) flash memory cards. The microSD cards could easily fit on your pinky fingernail. A microSD card is to a Sansa player as a CD is to a CD player. You can have a microSD card with all your rock music, another with all your jazz, another with all your country music (or use whatever method you like to organize your music on your microSD cards) and just pop them into your player whenever you want to listen to something new! No need to attach your player to your PC to “re-sync” it, like you must do with the iPod Nano whenever you want change your music selection. Just pop in a different microSD card and you’ve got a whole new selection of music. This is especially handy when you don’t have access to your PC (long car / plane / train / bus ride, power outage, etc). Just be careful when removing the microSD card from the slot on the Sansa. The slot is spring loaded. I know from experience, when you push on the card to release it from the slot, if you don’t ease it out, it will literally fly out of the slot. Since the cards are so tiny, they could be hard to find.

The screen on the Sansa e250 is a rectangular shape and taller than an iPod’s square display. Viewing portrait pictures on the Sansa is done holding the unit in its normal, upright position. Landscape pictures can be viewed by turning it sideways. Video is always viewed by holding it sideways. This allows the video to take advantage of the extra space of the rectangular display. The display bright, colorful and clear supported by a nice contrast setting and back lighting.

SanDisk includes a media conversion program which will convert your video files into a format and size which will work on your Sansa. The resulting Quicktime video file (which is rotated to display width-wise in the display) is then automatically transferred to the internal memory of your Sansa. The Media Converter software (written by ArcSoft) is one of the weak links for this product. The converted video files that it creates do not play well. Some issues I’ve encountered are “jumpy” video (the motion is not smooth), garbled video (there is sometimes “garbage” on the right side of the video), and sometimes it justs stops playing and I get a message saying this video needs to be converted with the Media Converter program. These problems seem to be more prevalent the further into the video you are. Reseting the player does not resolve the issue.

The e250 also includes some other nifty features like an FM stereo radio. You can record audio from the FM radio onto the player. It also includes a voice recorder. Both of these recording types are saved in WAV format files on the internal memory. The WAV files can be transferred to your PC or simply listened to later on the player.

The e250 can also be used a removable drive on your PC. It comes with a USB connection cable. When plugged into a USB port on your PC, the e250 begins recharging its internal battery. It will also check for updates to the firmware (i.e. the operating system of the player) and download / install those updates from the internet when available.

There are two USB modes that the e250 can use. The MTP allows the player to be synced from applications like Windows Media Player 10. Music files, playlists, and album art can all be synced to the player. In MSC mode, the player acts as a removable drive and you can copy files between the player and your PC.

If your battery is getting old and will last long, you can purchase a new rechargeable and replace it yourself. It basically involves removing a few screws on the back of the unit, taking out the old battery and putting in the new one. Battery life is great between charges. It lasts around 20 hours for when just playing music. The display automatically shuts off at a configurable time limit which conserves power.

Many companies have already developed a multitude of accessories including cases, chargers and FM broadcasters (to play the music over a radio) and more.

Overall, the Sansa e250 is a great media player with lots of features at a very reasonable price. This product is set to take over the market. If Apple doesn’t stop basking in its 15 minutes of fame (which ended 5 minutes ago), it’ll find itself sitting on the curb playing a six string for change.