Mom got a Mac in the middle of 2009. At first she really loved it but she quickly became frustrated with the differences between it and the Windows world she’d known for years. At one point we had an email exchange about configuring video chat:
From: Gagne, Kathleen
To: Gagne, David
Subject: video
Sent: July 16, 2009 11:10 AM ETHi, David,
Do you have video on your Mac?
I would love to chat with you for a few minutes once in a while.
I’m not sure how to do it yet, but I’ll get it!
Love you,
mom
From: Gagne, David
To: Gagne, Kathleen
Subject: video
Sent: July 16, 2009 6:54 PM ETYes, I do. All MacBooks have a built-in video camera.
You need to get an iChat account to use it.
Once you’ve gotten an iChat account, let me know and we can schedule a time to chat that way.
I never use iChat because I prefer to use AIM (AOL’s Instant Messenger), but I use iChat sometimes if [redacted] wants to talk to me face to face.
From: Gagne, Kathleen
To: Gagne, David
Subject: video
Sent: July 17, 2009 1:45 PM ETi’ve been trying to get an ichat account. i’m still working on it. what’s the catch?
From: Gagne, David
To: Gagne, Kathleen
Subject: video
Sent: July 17, 2009 5:56 PM ETto the best of my knowledge, there is no catch.
read slowly and carefully and it should be simple.
From: Gagne, Kathleen
To: Gagne, David
Subject: video
Sent: July 22, 2009 8:56 AM ETso I could set up AIM? is it free?
let me know.
From: Gagne, David
To: Gagne, Kathleen
Subject: video
Sent: July 22, 2009 12:16 PM ETYou’re close …
First of all: All of these are free, so don’t worry about that. You do not have to pay to chat online.
Second of all: The terms “application” and “program” are synonymous.
In the past when you and I were chatting on your Windows computer, we were using Microsoft’s instant messenger service, which is MSN Messenger. You had (have) an account with Microsoft Messenger, but you won’t ever use that again because there is no Microsoft chat program for the Macintosh.
Your Mac comes with a chat program called iChat. The iChat program allows you to communicate with other people using multiple services. You can — and should — create an AOL account, which is free. Then you tell iChat what your AOL account is and you can chat using that, just like you used to do with MSN Messenger.
AOL’s chat service is called AIM, which stands for “AOL Instant Messenger”.
My AIM account is [redacted].
We only managed to get it to work once or twice, and then only when my cousin or sister helped her use Skype to do it. Of course now I dearly wish I’d been more patient with her. I would do anything to be able to see her silly smile and hear her voice again.