Leopard Antics

Oh...by the way, Leopard (the latest Mac OS X upgrade) is awesome. I upgraded back in November and I mentioned it another Blaug entry when Joe (of fourhman.com fame) screen-shared in the middle of the entry.

Along with the normal iChat (Mac's instant messaging program) which makes 2- and 3-way video chatting a cinch, you can also show or send complete documents, pictures, and videos to the other person. But the sweetest thing that the upgrade makes possible is screen-sharing. It lets you give control of your screen and mouse to someone you are chatting with!! Awesome.

I introduced Jeff and Terry to iChat, back when they secretly got a new iMac in December. I showed 'em a bunch of its capabilities with Leopard, such as screensharing, photo theater, and video chat. I also dropped some screen-grabbing science on 'em. I took a couple of screengrabs myself to mark the occasion, as well as sent them some photos from Mason's Baptism.

Check this shot out: it's Jeff and Terry showing off Jeff's AZ Halloween costume: a huge papier-mache Lego Star Wars Han Solo. As Han would say: "Great shot kid! That was one in a million!"



And then they got their Sand-Husky in on the action for a Family ScreenGrab Photo! Aren't they cute, folks??



Brilliant. After that touching moment, we screenshared so I could try to help Terry with a problem she was having with a current project for school. It turned out I was not much help, but screensharing dazzled them. It was fucking sweet because I'm in PA and I moved a mouse in AZ. C'mon! That's awesome!! Get excited!

Terry said the video chat alone would make her mom get a cable internet connection by the week after she told her mom about it. (Her mom misses Terry somethin' fierce.)

We then goofed around with changing the backgrounds, both moving and static, as well as with the stupid/funny photo booth settings.

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Then last week, Mark, Jeff and I tried to get a 3-way video chat going, but it didn't work. The biggest reason is that Mark's still on a PC. It was really disappointing because Jeff bought Mark the webcam for Christmas so they could video chat like Jeff and I do. But there's some wonky shit between AIM for Windows and iChat. We did get some 3-way voice conferencing going, thanks to Skype, but that was not as satisfying as a video chat would have been. We're still working on it, though.

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Then tonight I tried to get Eep (my original college roommate and damn good friend) in on a video chat with me. (This is us on the eve of my 21st birthday...)



I tried because in my buddy list, he's listed as having video chat capability. He accepted, but the only thing that happened on my end was a big window of my webcam showing me to myself. Usually I can see the other person instead of just me...

It turns out that he doesn't own a camera yet. Nor does he have a microphone hooked up. Hmm. That's funny, cuz I thought Vista PCs were supposed to be able to compete with iMacs right outta the box... I didn't have to buy a camera or hook up a microphone for the iTauz. Interesting. (Sorry, Eep, not busting on YOU, per se...just PCs in general.)

Anyways... he revealed that he could hear me, but couldn't see me. And I could neither hear nor see him, but we had a text chat window open. So it ended up with me talking out loud and he would type back a response to my verbal questions. It's funny because, ideally, it should have been the other way around because Eep is a very slow typer and I am not. But it worked in its own backwards little way. And even though I felt pretty damn ridiculous talking out loud to my computer, but it was a funny to have it respond in Eep-speak (frequently-misspelled text messages). It looked like this:



If you look closely, I told him to smile for the picture... so he flashed up his "Joe Cool" emoticon. Classic Eep.

So to sum up... I enjoy my iMac and its upgraded operating system because it lets me be an idiot with people I totally miss because they are far away from here. Go buy one so I can be an idiot with you.