Video Chatting

I have always been intrigued by the notion of video chatting and learned the basics from the Techspert on my Alaskan cruise.  The program that was used for video chatting is Windows Messenger.  This is available mainly for PC machines which quite a few of my friends and family have and also can be loaded to chat on Macs all for FREE.

All you need to get started is an Microsoft e-mail address - I use an @live.com address to keep everything clean.  You can use an @hotmail.com account as well.  I have noticed that the @msn.com addresses can only instant message - there was no option to initiate a video call.

I have been chatting with my family and it makes it quite entertaining to see people as you are talking.  The program also allows you to tape a video message and send it to someone not online at the moment so they can see your video when they log on.

I know that there are other video chatting sites such as iChat (for Mac users) and the universally used Skype.  I tried and failed to log on with my iChat since the user accounts are pretty specific - I was finally able to chat with my brother using my google account.  It was a long and tedious trial.

I have had good luck with using Messenger and was informed by the Techspert that the video quality is pretty good since not a lot of people are on it.  He stated that Skype sometimes has a lag time due to the great quantity of users on the network.

HOW TO:**

Open Messenger and see who is on line from your contacts log.
Click on their name to open a "chat" window
Select Video call to start chatting.
 (If you can't see the video call button, click the >> in your chat box and click show the menu bar.  Select "Actions" and scroll down to "Video" and select "Start a Video Call.")

** You will need a computer with a webcam and internet connection.