Power User Monday Tip of the Week

iChat Tips, Tricks and Hacks

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By: Jon Gales

It's been a little while since my last column, but even though I have been busy, I have spent a fair amount of time on iChat. It's not my favorite client, but I forced myself to use it so I could offer up some tips. If you do not have iChat AV, go get it. I do not promise any of these will work on plain ol' iChat.

To test out a lot of these features, you're going to either have a friend, or if you're a lonely soul, another screen name.

One-way chatting
Ok, so this really isn't one-way chatting, but it's close. Most people haven't yet discovered that if you right click on a buddy that has audio or video enabled you can start a one-way session. It sounds a lot cooler than it is though, you really feel dumb talking to yourself. I have a hunch that it would be handy as a security camera, but since you can't set iChat to auto-accept video chats, even that has a limited use.

Broadcast video
Hook a DV cam that has a tape inside it into your Mac. Make sure the DV cam is set to view it (VCR mode), and then check iChat's video preview window. You should be seeing whatever the video source is outputting. Now when Grandma wants to see the kids, don't even bother burning a DVD. That's passé. Just video conference her :).

Send an SMS
This one was a hit over at MobileTracker. Try sending a message a screen name in this format:

+12223334444

Country code will vary with mileage. If you've got everything right, you should get a text message on the number you typed in (in the US the number starts after the +1). I've heard no reports of it not working on certain wireless carriers, although that's totally possible. The bummer here is that they do not show up on your buddy list, which makes sense because you can always send an SMS. I'd like to see some integration with Address Book on this one.

Browse/Search logs easily
One of the biggest gaps in iChat is that the logs are just plain old text files (in iChat's quasi-HTML format) in the Documents directory. Other clients include a log-viewer so you can easily view all conversations with XYZ, or search for a certain conversation (VERY handy). Unsanity's Slava wrote a log-viewer that hardly anyone knows about, but it kicks butt. Here's the link.

Use a USB camera with AV
Most people that already owned web cams before WWDC had USB ones. Out of the box, iChat AV doesn't work with anything that doesn't use FireWire. Some clever programmer whipped up a hack that uses Unsanity (yes, they rock) APE to allow you to use USB cams with iChat AV. Very cool, although no USB cam will be nearly as sexy as the iSight.

Let people know what you're doing
You probably have a Mac buddy on your list that always has an away message... It updates ALL the time, and usually has a song or application in it. They are probably using iChatStatus. It's a clever tool that lets you dynamically update your status with what you're currently doing (listening to song XXX or using application XXX). It's got a lot of options, and you can personalize it to seem less machine like.

This should give you a lot to chew on. See you next week!