webcam

[mikeyman]

Hey, im new to mac, as ive always used a pc
I generally use messenger for mac to speak to my msn contacts, however i am unable to use the webcam feature.
I have tried alternatives such as aMSN which seems to give a white screen to some contacts. I have also tried Mercury however i found this slowed down my mac and crashed quite frequently.
Are there any alternative messengers available?
Thanks

 

[ferritt]

Hi mate,

Im in exactly the same boat got my mac pro this morning. like you i only know windows so i's gonna take me awhile to get used to osx. and in the 8 or so hours i've had i can say it's great so easy to use. the only thing i'm slighly disapointed is that isight cant be used in msn. amsn just did'nt work for me. so at the moment i have no use for this great little web cam. it's the only downside for me. maybe in the future a way round this will be available.

cheers

 

[mac57]

I would strongly recommend Skype. It has Mac, PC and Linux clients, which makes it pretty universal, and supports both voice and video calling. I use it regularly and love it.

 

[hclincha]

amsn works great with webcam, problem is that you probably have to open some ports on your router, which can be a pain in the ***. The skype route is much easier though.

hey, things are censored here

 

[mikeyman]

open ports on my router...
how do i do this?

 

[ferritt]

I would strongly recommend Skype. It has Mac, PC and Linux clients, which makes it pretty universal, and supports both voice and video calling. I use it regularly and love it.

i only talk to msn cantacts so can i still use skype?

cheers

 

[mac57]

No, Skype can only meaningfully talk to other Skype users, or the outside world via standard telephone voice stuff.

Note by the way that Skype was designed for working behind firewalls - in general, I have found no need to open ports on my router/firewall at all. It works seamlessly despite this. No application ports opened, no port forwarding, no mess at all.

It can achieve this since it passes everything through its central servers. This, and its proprietary protocol, allow it to work through firewalls, NATS, NAPTS and other internet address "massaging" devices.

 

[todd51]

open ports on my router...
how do i do this?

It's called port-forwarding.

For example, on my Linksys router I have port-forwarding enabled under the preferences. Just put down the port range and enable it, you should be good to go.

 

[mikeyman]

port forwarding, ive heard of this which to me is a start lol
but i know i will set it up wrong if at all
i have a netgear 128mbps kit
help much appreciated lol thanks