Why can't computers just all get along?

So heres the scoop, for a while now I've been webcamming with a friend of mine a little over 100 miles away. initially, we used yahoo IM. Normally I use pidgin and combine all my IMs into one interface, but pidgin does not support webcams!

now, she has a mac, and thus uses ichat. I'm on a Dell XPS and i've been using Yahoo Messenger. For a while now, its worked great until recently. Now I can see her video, hear her audio, and send my audio, but i cannot for the life of me send video. The settings of YIM won't even let me try and find my camera. Oddly enough, I can see myself, but she cant see me,

Additionally, last night another two friends, also using ichat, wanted to webcam with me over aim. So i switched on over to aim 6.5 to try and webcam. She could not send me requests. When she tried "an unknown error occurred" When I sent my video request, the box opened up and i could see myself, but not her. She saw nothing. After a short while the connection closed itself.

When I tried this later with my other friend on aim, the the same problem occurred with one minor difference, this time when it closed itself it said "you do not have a webcam" yet i still clearly saw my own image on screen.

i was tinkering trying various IM clients all night. yeah, i went to bed at 330, not realizing the futility, since no one was online anymore

fast forward to today, I'm using aim 6.5 with a friend on PC and we can both see AND hear each other.

I tried aim + ichat again, no real success. SHE can invite ME to see/hear her, and she can hear me, but the fact that my mac friends still can't see me still remains. (i know i know, other friends have already said "wheres the problem in that? you get to see two gorgeous women without them looking at you. its a win-win" *sigh* )

I tried Trillian (aim and yahoo) + ichat, with even less impressive results. nothing worked at all

what the hell is going on? has anyone had any experience with these issues or any insight at all as to how to get my PC and its webcam to play nice with macs and their webcams?

 

That's one of the main reasons that I dont want a mac, they arent compatible with alot of stuff that I find important. Im no computer guru, but I swear that the computer choses which day it wants to function right.

 

Hmmmm, that is a good question. I have a mac and use iChat. My friends use Aim and we can see and hear each other with no issues. As for the comment above, Macs are more compatible than you may think, especially since they now use the Intel processors. I run windows on mine when I have to for the old apps that I don't want to have to buy in the mac version.

 

What version(s) of AIM are they using? I've tried 5.9, 6.5, 6.8.2.18, 6.8.2.19 and a few other non aim programs. If you can help me to make this work you will be my hero of TMS

as of right now its deteriorated to the point where i can barely get anything even out of a pc-pc connection. that may just be my internet connection though.

 

university internet connections suck, plain and simple, ive never seen a good one