So, I hooked up with some of my Mac buddies - two in Cali, one in Ohio - and got a 4-person video chat going. As you can see from the snapshot, it's got a pretty impressive interface. What was also impressive was the file/photo sharing. I was able to stream a Billy Ocean music video ("Caribbean Queen", of course) and an Al Green mp3 to the other 3 people, pretty seamlessly. Nice.
The only downside is that I was the only one in the bunch without a native Mac-friendly web cam. Mine is more of a Vista-certified Logitech USB camera. I had to install 3 different pieces of software on the Mac to get it to work, and even then, I was the one that kept getting dropped out of the chat, or my mike would stop working.
I guess the question is, do I ding Mac for making me install 3 pieces of 3rd-party software in order to use a name-brand web cam? Or do I ding myself for not following the Mac motto: use our stuff, and only our stuff, til death do us part?
I know that the major instant messenger folks on Windows also have video chat capability (I chat with my wife via MSN Messenger video all the time, cuz I'm too lazy to walk up the stairs to her office). Never tried 4 people on video chat, tho. And, although I'm sure both Win & Mac can do basic video chats, I'm pretty sure the iChat interface is a lot better than the others.
On a side note, this is the first blog post I've composed while on the Mac. it's also the first blog post to give me formatting errors that made me have to look at the HTML to figure out what was going on. I don't know if this is just coincidence, but I HAD to mention it (hehehe...)
Hmmmm, on we go....
(originally posted 1/3/08)
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