i have a mac and my friend has a pc with a web cam, sharing?

Not through iChat, but if you get Skype (free for both of you), you will be thrilled. Not as easy as iChat to set up, but not bad, and the quality is as good as iChat.

The Official answer from AIM is this http://www.aim.com/helpfaq/starting_out/getstarted.adp#608

That is not to say that you may get it to work.

The PC end will need to do this http://www.ralphjohns.co.uk/page12.html#_Service

MeBeam is also an option
http://www.mebeam.com/index.php/Main/Main



1:31 PM Sunday; March 9, 2008

The AIM experience is horrible between PC's and Macs. You gave this poor fellow 10 pages of data to go through to get it working, and when he does, the quality will still be horrible.

Skype is the simple answer. There is little to do. On the Mac side, it's just ready to go. Set the preferences so that camera hooks up without a request from the user. Do the same on the PC side (though finding that preference in "Tools" menu is a bit hard).

The duplexing on Skype is so good, my brother and I do not even use headsets, and there is no echo. Can't be beat for ease of use and quality. Aim does, and always has lag in quality between PC's and Macs

Download a Copy of Little Snitch and then see if you think Skype is a viable option.

MeBeam is an option that I posted as well.

The Poster didn't ask for Options. They should make an informed choice though



4:50 PM Sunday; March 9, 2008

Down Ralph. He asked "how can I hook...". I told him how. My computer does not have national secrets. Let them snoop. Skype is a great experience. Relax. You gave him a snitch lesson, and 40 paragraphs to read. Let's see whose suggestion he uses.

Hi Ralph,

I was just curious about your post... I have Skype & Little Snitch installed and use Skype every day to talk to people in China, Australia, all over the world basically. Normally I get Skype calls from a staff member at a shipyard in Korea on a low bandwidth connection...

...Little Snitch has never caused me any problems with Skype, in any of the scenarios above. Is there something I should be looking out for?

Regards,

Jamie

I think he's insinuating that Skype has security issues

Or that Skype makes multiple connections all over the place - hardly surprising since it is peer-to-peer.

Are we really concerned? 🙂

That's what I was thinking...

...Little Snitch will go CRAZY when you are using Skype, because of the amount of different ports it uses (I think it tries to use any port it likes?), so I set a Rule in my Little Snitch configuration to 'Allow any Connection'.

Naturally, I've set this rule up because Skype is an official Application, used by millions of people, so I will grant it access to any port. Is this something I should reconsider?

Regards,

Jamie

Personally, I don't share Ralph's "tightness". I think Skype is one of the best applications ever, especially when used cross platform. It is just a great program.

Fair comment. I have used Skype for years without hassle.

If you don't understand how Little Snitch works, it can be quite shocking when it pops up every 3 seconds 'warning' you about an Applications activities.

It took me a while to work out how to use Little Snitch effectively. Now, I wouldn't use my mac without it installed. An amazing little Application. Like having an airbag as well as a seatbelt in your car.

I have Little Snitch set to ask every time and then only click "Allow til quit"

iChat is Peer-to-Peer when it is in Video or Audio chat. In a 1-1 chat you are the only two people involved. in a 4 way only the 4 of you.

Skype is more like Bittorrent in that it makes loads of connection during Login and during chats.

I am not so worried about security as I am about people using my bandwidth.

You can of course set Little Snitch to allow some apps to do thing without asking (reminding you ) each time.



7:13 PM Tuesday; March 11, 2008

Those are not only different ports (that are not listed) but different IP as well.

You are not connected to one central Server but linked to as many as connections as you click OK to. (or are unaware of if you don't check).

AS scb says I am less worried really about the issue of security as there has not been a Virus in the wild for OS X. That is not to say it will never happen.
My view on this is that it is a risk I would not take about potentially putting myself in harm's way.

It is about When Will a security problem be it virus or Trojan effect Macs rather than it has never happened so I am safe.

See this story
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=102379



8:08 PM Tuesday; March 11, 2008