iChat Questions

[DougJrS]

Is iChat basically AOL messanger for a mac? I have added my .mac account to iChat, but I don't know how to tell my PC friends how to find me.

I guess what I need to know is what program on the PC will talk with iChat.

Thanks,
Doug

[edesignuk]

AFAIK any AOL IM client can "talk" to iChat. Just give them the .mac email address you sign in to iChat with.

[wrldwzrd89]

AFAIK any AOL IM client can "talk" to iChat. Just give them the .mac email address you sign in to iChat with.
edesignuk is correct - iChat is essentially an AIM client that supports .Mac members as usernames. Although AIM itself cannot register someone with a .Mac username, AIM can talk to iChat users that are using their .Mac email to log in.

[Mudbug]

since I don't usually try to "find" other people - I'm not 100% sure -
but the quickest thing to do would be for YOU to start up a chat with THEM and have THEM put YOU in their buddy list. that way there's no confusion. Then once one of them has done it, have them tell you what shows up as your username in the buddy list.

[macrlz9]

ok, your .mac email address is an aim s/n for example mine is macrlz9@mac.com i can sign in on a pc using aim with the s/n macrlz9@mac.com you can't leave out the @mac.com part so that's all there is to it!

[ephramz]

You just gotta be careful though. mac.com screennames for iChat don't work with 3rd party AIM clients on the PC like Trillian, or even some of the AIM Express Java clients on the aim.com website. So because I have several friends on PC's who use Trillian to be connected to multiple services at once (like Fire and Proteus and Adium on the Mac) I went ahead and got an AOL screenname since it's free. With a mac.com screenname in iChat, I never showed up as online in their buddy list, but now with an AOL screenname there's no problem.

[janey]

...don't work with 3rd party AIM clients on the PC like Trillian,...
Are you sure? I use Trillian Pro on my PC at home, and i swear I remember seeing .mac addresses in my buddy list. I even remember chatting with a few people with .mac addresses. And I see myself on my .mac screenname online.
Bah.
btw, unless youre big on audio/videochatting, I really really really recommend Adium (http://adiumx.com) as a better, faster, almost full-featured alternative to Fire, AIM for Mac OS X, iChat, Proteus, blah blah with support for Trepia, AIM, Jabber, Yahoo and many others...

[johnnyjibbs]

If you're afraid about compatibility, don't use your .Mac name for iChat - choose a normal AOL AIM screen name and use this for iChat. Then everyone will be able to recognise you, no matter what flavour of AIM they use.