27 June 2006

Keeping in Touch via Technology


"All bunch together so I can see!"
I am away from home, helping one of my clients and staying at a motel overnight for most of this week. Although this saves many hours of driving, money in fuel and is a lot safer, it means I am away from the family.
This is where technology comes in. The hotel has broadband/DSL internet access, I have web cameras both with me and another attached to the PC in my office, and we have accounts for myself and Lana in Skype and MSN Messenger.
Skype is great for voice communication, but the video can be patchy. MSN Messenger is great with the video but voice is of variable quality. So I call Lana via Skype and then we turn on the webcam via MSN.
So from hundreds of kilometres away I am able to say goodnight to the children, we can say our nightly prayers together, and the children are able to show me what they did today. James showed me a pretty tricky Lego creation, complete with hatches, secret bits, spots for men to hide in and so on. All via a webcam.
Now that's a pretty handy use of technology.
And all for free. (Other than the once off hardware cost.)

3 comments:

patternnuts said...

Now that is great and so much better than callling by phine even (the fess and not as good as video too).
How do you go about using one for video and one for sound???? Forgive me as I have never used a web cam or anything of that type.

patternnuts said...

forgive the above typos I mean *phone, and *fees. See kids, "Haste makes waste."

DavidofOz said...

We first call with Skype. Then, once we are chatting away, we go into MSN Messenger, Right click on the user name and select "Voice/Video - Send my Webcam (no audio)".
Voila! Video on one and voice on the other.