Tonight, on the Assistive Technology Show, we’ll be looking at Ventrilo, another voice conferencing solution. Ventrilo has the advantage over other solutions that you can easily, and at no cost, use it to create your own chat system. For example, you might use Ventrilo to start your own book club, create a place to hold meetings for your church, conduct meetings for an organization to which you belong, or just to have a place for family and friends to gather.

In order to join this evening’s program, you will need to install and configure the Ventrilo client. Below, you will find directions on how to do this. In addition, I have created an audio tutorial which will walk you through the process. You can access the audio tutorial at http://atmaine.libsyn.org/index.php?post_id=331964 .

So, here’s how to get up and running. First, download Ventrilo. Clicking the above link will take you to Ventrilo’s download page. Choose the first Ventrilo client which is the Windows version. A Macintosh client also exists and directions for getting it up and running are similar to those written here. After choosing your version, you’ll be presented with an agreement page basically warning you that it’s illegal to export the software to Iran, Cuba, etc… Simply hit agree and the download finally starts. You can choose to either save, or run the downloaded file — I chose to run it as I didn’t think I’d be needing to reinstall it again. Either way, you’ll be presented with a standard installation wizard, the same one you’ve probably seen countless times when installing other software. Simply “next” your way through the wizard and choose finish when prompted. Ventrilo will have placed an icon on your desktop, simply choose it to run the program.

When running Ventrilo for the first time, you’ll be asked if you want to read the beginner tutorial. If you’re curious, choose yes, otherwise, choose no to just get started. This is now where things get a wee bit tricky. Fear not, you’ll only have to do this once. You’ll be on a user name field, actually it’s a combo box. Hitting tab once will take you to an unlabeled button. Press space to activate this button. Basically, what we’re doing here is creating a new user profile. The users, once created, appear in that combo box, but in order to create them, we need to use the user manager i.e. the unlabeled button. Choose new to create a new user and type in your name. Tab to ok to creat create the user. You can now set options for your newly created user, although the defaults are perfectly fine. Tab to OK, unless there’s something you really do want to change. After choosing OK, you’ll be placed back on that unlabeled button, press tab. You’ll now be on a server field, yet another empty combo box. Pressing tab again will take you to yet another unlabeled button, this is the server manager. Choose this unlabeled button and as before, choose new to create a new server entry. Once created, the server entries will appear in the combo we just skipped over. Although this may seem complicated, the advantage is that you can define multiple servers and simply choose the one you want to connect to. Anyway, after hitting new, you’ll be asked for a name. call the server whatever you wish — I called mine A T Maine, but you can put whatever you’d like here. Press ok to create the entry. You will then be able to define settings for the newly entered server profile. The first attribute we need to define is the server’s host name, or address. In the case of my server, the address needed is: v45.darkstarllc.com . I have my Ventrilo server hosted which is why we have a darkstarllc address and not an atmaine one. Pressing tab will take us to the “port” value. By default, 3684 will be filled in, we need to change this in my case to 5881. Although 3784 is the standard Ventrilo port, mine is different because it’s hosted by another company. Pressing tab will move us between additional options — the defaults are fine. Press ok to finish adding the server. Whew, wasn’t that fun? Look at the bright side, you only have to do it once.

OK, now that we’ve got our user profile created and our server added, we can simply tab to connect and hit space. That’s it! You’ll be connected, you’ll hear a really cool sounding connect sound and you’re in. From then on, in order to use the server, you need only start Ventrilo from the desk top, tab to connect and hit space… You don’t even have to go back to the web site.

In order to talk, simply use your left control key. You can change this hotkey, but I think I’ve caused enough confusion for one day :).

As always, if you have any questions, pleas feel free to Email me, or call me at (207) 512-2387. Also, tonight’s program will be archived, so if you’re not up to installing Ventrilo, or need additional assistance, feel free to listen to the archives.

As always, I look forward to seeing everyone tonight, on the Assistive Technology Show!

Regards,

Steve