Transcontinental AV Chat Success 


In the process of setting up an AV Chat connection with Stephen's daughter and grandson, Jim AV chats with Tony in England. 

It's been a while since I posted a blog entry on technology, but this is pretty darned exciting! We've been visiting Stephanie and Dawn and their infant son in Boston. Before I left, I bought them an iSight camera for their PowerBook so the granddads could connect across the generations. I just thought since we are 1000 miles away, this would be a chance to see Zander as he is growing up. As it turned out, I had to fool around with technology almost the whole time to get this working.

The first barrier to circumvent was the fact that when I looked at the ladies' laptop, there was no chat program installed. So they looked for and couldn't find the disks. The second barrier was the fact that they had not upgraded their operating system in a while (running OS X 10.2.8) and so the new AV Chat available for download from Apple would not run on their computer. Also, turns out they got one of the VERY EARLY Titanium series, and they are just below the recommended speed for this chat stuff. So now I turned to Apple's discussions, as I have so many times in the past. There are hundreds of people who regularly read these forums and contribute advice. Almost always, I am able to solve a problem with help from someone online.

Eventually, after reading some of the answers to my forum post . . . "Granddad wants to chat with grandson. Help!" . . . I concluded that I should try to find a copy of IChat AV 2.0, which has a small but dedicated following of folks still successfully using it. And even though it had virtually vanished from the internet, I was able to locate a copy and install it. Actually, I got long, involved directions on how to restore it from the original disks that came with the computer, but since they had been misplaced, some kind soul just lent me a copy of theirs.

The next step in the episode was to try to set up a chat while still in Boston. Stephanie has a cable modem connection. I found out using an online resource that it is quite a fast connection. Stephen and I took our Powerbook, which has AV iChat 3.0 installed on it, down to the local coffeehouse. For the price of two cups of coffee, a bagel with cream cheese and whatever roaming charges I incurred using Verizon to call Stephanie on my cell phone, Stephanie and I were able to see our names in our respective chat programs. Unfortunately, the wireless connection (I suspected, and later confirmed) was too slow and undependable to support a video chat.

Well, actually, there was also the complexity of getting a screen name for the ladies from the AIM (America Instant Messaging) network for free. Using iChat requires either a .Mac user id or an AIM screen name.

Anyway, while talking on the forums, I had received an offer from Tony somewhere in England to try out the chat connection. So this morning bright and early, after feasting on a breakfast of waffles and sausage and bacon that Dawn had made, I connected with Tony, who apparently does a lot of chatting. But the connection came through loud and clear, and we were seeing and hearing each other across the Atlantic for no more than the cost of our internet connections, computers and whatever technological elbow grease it took to follow through to set up the chat. I thanked Tony for his help and I introduced Stephanie and Alexander to him. This surely counts as his good deed for the day!

So now, I rest, on the last day of my trip east, assured that there will be plenty of AV Chats between grandson and granddad as Zander grows up. What a way to start the Happy New Year! 

Posted: Sat - January 7, 2006 at 09:34 AM          

©