Inspired by blog posts from Robby Russell, and thoughtbot, we've recently started using Campfire for
text-chat between our distributed Swirrl team members.
As we all use macs, we were previously using Apple's iChat, with aim/.mac accounts. However, we often had connectivity problems with this, and so I went on the lookout for something new.
Although Campfire doesn't let you display a 'status', we use the idea that if you're in the chat room then you're available for chatting, and if you're not, then you're either away or don't want to be disturbed. This works fine for us. One major benefit of Campfire is that the transcripts of all chats are stored on the server for easy searching. 
As is usual for a 37 signals application, The user interface is clean and intuitive. If you're on a mac, the user experience can be further enhanced by using fluid. Fluid lets you create what it calls "Site Specific Browsers". These are bascially uber-bookmarks that you can put in your dock, and let you launch a site in its own little browser as if it was a standalone app. 
When using fluid, if you have any unread messages in a chat it handily shows up the dock icon (the image for which can be downloaded here).
If a conversation gets too complicated for text-chat, we still resort to an iChat voice chat, for the reasons described in this old post. iChat also offers the benefit of screen-sharing if you're on Leopard.
Friday, 14 March 2008
Lighting your campfire with fluid
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Sunday, 25 March 2007
Skype vs iChat
Until recently, I'd been using Skype quite a lot for my VOIP phone calls.
However, unless both people in the conversation used headphones or some kind of headset, then I could hear a slightly delayed echo of my own voice. Although this didn't actually stop anything working it was very disconcerting. Also, if either party had the volume turned up beyond a whisper, then I got quite an annoying feedback whistle.
So, I decided to try the iChat application that came with my mac, with another of my mac-owner buddies. To use iChat, you need a .mac or aim name. (I found out by reading the .mac faq that if you sign up for the free .mac trial, then you can still use your .mac name for iChat after the trial expires.)
iChat suffers from neither of the problems that plague Skype. Even when using quite a high volume we experienced no feedback or echo, and both members of the conversation were just using the MacBook's built in iSight webcam, integrated mic and laptop speakers (i.e. with no headsets)
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