Ok, I'm a little (read: big) bit behind right now and the exercises are inaccessible on the day I was going to do the lot. So for the sake of getting something done here's a rundown of my experiences with the last three applications we used.
Google Chat:
First impression for this one is that it is really NOT designed for large scale interaction. By that I mean, the way we assaulted it with a dozen people trying to chat in the teensy window in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. It's true you could float the window out to make viewing easier though. Getting the chat started was a little confusing as I wasn't even quite sure how to start a conversation with anyone, but my fallback plan of "click stuff until something happens" got a chat window open with Ash. Then we invited a few more people into the fray, and I have to say the ability for anyone in the chat to invite more people in made it easier to keep things flowing (otherwise I would have had to moderate the whole bloody thing).
Sound and video operated like I thought it would. Some people seemed to have trouble finding the buttons to push; they were just in the config menu of the chat window.
I think google chat will probably only ever rest in the private casual domain. Email and chat: text, audio and visual is an attractive compilation. Web based interface with multifaceted user ID is less attractive. I for one prefer my interaction methods to be external of a browser.
CSU Interact Chat:
MESSY! Messy messy messy. I think the main issues I have with this chat program can be softened with the knowledge that we simply had too many people in there. In this day and age that isn't really an acceptable excuse though. The refresh rate of chat messages was too slow and as such, with so many people in there, sometimes when it did refresh you would end up with a dozen new messages to read in a matter of seconds. Useful for small scale collaboration within the CSU pen, but there are much better alternatives out there.
Skype:
I wasn't able to be there for the meeting last Wednesday but I do use Skype very regularly and I have nothing but praise for the handy little app. I keep a subscription with it to make international phone calls to 40 different countries at no additional cost (/end sales plug). My partner and I use it to keep in contact on a daily basis while we're apart. We also leave each other messages using the chat feature built into it. It's pretty much the cream of the crop when it comes to chat programs. Comparatively I've used AIM, Windows Messenger and ICQ. Skype does all the rudimentary things each of these other clients does (sans the myriad advertisements) and is the best option for video audio and voip telephone.
So obviously I like skype...
Will get the topic exercises up when the page resurfaces.
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