Bill,
Just before Christmas I had a one-to-one session and covered iChat with
the instructor. I found out the following:
1) iChat "sorta" works with AOL/AIM. It is not dependable. He [strongly]
recommended that both parties need a .Mac account for iChat to be reliable.
2) The advertisements that show the Mac screen with multiple video chats
going on, i.e. up to 3 people/pictures on your Mac, requires a .Mac account.
I asked the guy to repeat these items several times to make sure I
heard it right. I wanted to make sure my conclusion was right, that being
that if you intend to video chat with anyone that is either on a PC or does
not have a .Mac account, forget iChat and use Skype. It's bulletproof, free
and millions of people use it.
Greg
On 1/9/08 11:54 PM, "Bill Rising" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hey folks,
>
> I'm having one hell of a time trying to get iChat to work. Tonight I
> tried chatting with my wife via AIM, and found that while the invite
> for the chat works, the chat fails after appx. 20 seconds with a
> communications error (-8).
>
> When looking around on the internet, I've found a few solutions, all
> of which, well, [EMAIL PROTECTED]@#$:
>
> . Use port forwarding to open a bunch of ports to allow iChat to work
> [1], and forward the traffic to a particular computer. This seems to
> be a rather unacceptable solution, because it limits the chatters to 1
> per router.
>
> . Use port triggering to avoid the 1 per router problem above. The
> problem is that my Netgear wgr614v6 router doesn't allow one outgoing
> port to turn on multiple incoming ports, unless the ports are in a
> range.
>
> . Use UPnP, the Microsoft standard which doesn't seem to work with
> said Netgear routers.
>
> Some people have gone as far as to suggest that Netgear routers
> generally are (*(*&#*), and should be dumped, and that the proper
> solution is to waste money on new routers.
>
> Has anyone had any luck using video chats over AIM through iChat
> between two computers which sit behind routers? How about behind
> Netgear routers?
>
> Bill
> getting really tired of fighting with 'simple' applications
>
> [1] http://www.ralphjohnsuk.dsl.pipex.com/page3.html
> _______________________________________________
> The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will
> be January 22 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane.
> Posting address: [email protected]
> Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
_______________________________________________
The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will
be January 22 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane.
Posting address: [email protected]
Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
