Jakun Playing With New Toy

Today I went to Sunway Pyramid with my parents in-law. Since tommorrow is my father in-law's birthday, I was wonderting what gift to buy for him.

Then, I stopped by this computer accessory shop and hey.... maybe I can buy him a webcam for video call.

Great idea!

Thus, I bought two webcams - one for myself and another one for him, since he will miss my baby Ashley so much and wanted to see her almost daily. For some of you who are wondering the cost of a webcam - I paid RM95/webcam. Was told that it is an affordable one with acceptable quality. There are some that are selling at RM70/webcam but the video quality not as good (not too sure how true is that). Some webcams are selling at prices above RM300 (!!) I'm not buying that man. Way out of budget.

Somehow, it turned out to be an amazing evening. We, both myself and my father in law, have been playing on the web telecon like kids discovered some exciting new toys. Amazing. Really like jakun men. We were so amazed by it, but we had fun! Laughing all the way for 3 hours, at different houses!

Look at the webcam on my notebook (okay... my desk a bit messy) and the mike (chaggih leh). Okay, with my trademark wine as well.... Was a bit drunk too. We signed into MSN messanger and did our round of video conferencing on and on.

Amazing man. Those dreams of ours during kids time had come through. We, at least me, always thought of chatting on phone and see each others at the same time. The time has come true. Okay, the video quality is a bit off, and a bit slow too, but, what the heck, we had fun.

MSN Messanger can definitely do so - just tried. I heard Yahoo can do that too (have not tried yet). I have been on Skype for quite some time now and their video conferencing is in beta testing. Tried that but not that satisfactory. Didn't know how to go around it.

Apparently, the sound/voice quality of Skype is much better than MSN. Not too sure about Yahoo yet. Let me know if you have any experience in this. If you are going for VOIP, go for Skype. If you want video - go for MSN or Yahoo (was told).

Also, have you all tried Skype? No? Try it. It's free and is amazing. I have been using that for all my international business conferences - since my biz partners are from Singapore and US.

I noticed something interesting as well - the way people pronounce Skype. How would you pronounce it? Skype or "Sky - Pi"? Somehow, I heard a lot of people pronouce it as "Sky-pi" (especially those from Hong Kong and Malaysians who were influenced by Hong Kong people).. I pronounced it as Skype, how can it be "Sky-pi"? Sounds off.

Hey, let's try video conferencing one day if you are into online voice chat and video conference... Is fun! Maybe you guys can test it during your next gathering and if I am in Shanghai! Go to Starbucks lar with Timezone access. Make sure one of you have notebook + mike + webcam + MSN + Skype.