As some of you know, Safari has been taken out of beta status into  
"official non beta status" (grin).
You can download it from Apple's site http://www.apple.com (or via  
SUPP).

Also newly released is a beta version of iChat-AV (also available as a  
free download from Apple) that allows you to chat with voice and video.  
You will need a camera plugged into the Mac to use video (and you will  
need a broadband connection). If you are on a dial-up connection, you  
can still use voice for chatting. If you don't have a camera, then you  
can get one of the newly released iSight cameras from Apple ($149).  
These are supposed to be available now in Apple stores and in stores  
that carry Apple products (this may vary by location).

Right now to get these to work, you need the new iChat-AV client on  
both computers, but initial reviews are that it works very well. I  
suspect this will help sort out some of the confusion over how fast  
"broadband" is between cable and the xDSL offerings by commercial  
providers. Some mutterings are making the rounds that the service will  
be expanded in the future to work with other clients on the windoze  
side (uh Net-Meeting maybe).

One newly found undocumented feature of the new iChat-AV client is the  
ability to send SMS messages to SMS capable cell phones (these are like  
instant text messages for cell phones). Details can be found at:

http://www.apple-x.net/ 
modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=380&mode=thread&order= 
0&thold=0

This feature though is one that really is offered by AOL's IM service  
(the IM service is used in the background by iChat as the delivery  
network) rather than anything special from iChat. I wonder how long AOL  
will offer this before the phone carriers get annoyed and ask them to  
stop. if you sue this go easy with it as the person that you send the  
message to typically has the pay their cell phone company for the  
service.


                                Jerry



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