Business Bytes
March 13, 2009

Using iChat

 

A friend of mine wanted to put together a present for her 90 year old father, an iChat 3 way video conference between her, her brother and her father. She wanted to test it out first so I was the guinea pig playing the part of her father.

I happen to use a Mac at home but I'd never tried iChat with video.

iChat works with either an AIM ID, or a .mac ID. I had neither. Whenever I clicked on the 'get a .mac ID' it took me to someplace on the apple website that costs money. Although there are rumors on the web that .mac IDs are free, I couldn't figure out how to get one. Actually I couldn't figure out how to pay for one either because I probably would have done that.

AIM on the otherhand, is easy. It's free.

The iChat software is great once you get an ID that works.

But the apparent impossibility of getting a .mac ID from the company who's motto is "It just works." was ... well ... disconcerting.

Sometimes it just doesn't work at all.


Curt Finch

Curt Finch has more than two decades of software development and distributed workforce management experience. In 1997, Curt created the world's first internet-based timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt has a B.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech. His book, All Your Money, is available on Amazon.