A tip from my long past days as an HTML coder: Things look different from the outside.

‘way, ‘way back in the day, when everyone who didn’t use Netscape used Mosaic (except for those oddballs who spoke ftp), the rule was: see how your web page looks on every browser available, because even though HTML was a standard, it appeared slightly differently on different browsers.

Many videoconferencing platforms provide you a window of how you appear to others. The problem is that this window is “local”, meaning that it’s using information that hasn’t passed through the internet. The problem is that if your internet connection is spotty or dies midcall, you won’t know it.

So here’s a quick tip: If it’s at all possible, join your own meeting from another account. That way you can see yourself exactly as others see you.

(Another quick tip: If you do this, make sure you mute the sound on the secondary device. Otherwise you’ll get some horrific feedback.)