Connected!

Before I left home I got my laptop and home PC set up to use Skype Internet telephony, including the (beta) video calling. All it needed was a webcam and microphone for each machine and the (free) Skype software. Well it worked at home between two machines in the same house, each connecting via the Internet. Now to do it for real!

Saturday mornings is Swimming Lesson time for the kids at the Bury St Edmunds pool. So after they came home we had a go at intercontinental video conferencing. And it worked!

Here's what I could see on my laptop.

Up to now the little ones hadn't been told where I was. But I told Little Miss that whilst it was 9:30 am for them it was 6:30 pm with me. And they thought it was amazing that when I pointed my webcam out the window they could see it was dark here in Melbourne. I asked if she could guess where I was, and she guessed Australia straight away! I think maybe the regular not-so-accidental bringing up of facts and stories about Australia in family conversation over the last few weeks has paid off.

One of Big Miss's friends arrived at the door, so she was invited in to see what was going on. "That's scary!", she pronounced.

The latency (delay between things being said at one end and being heard at the other end) will take a little getting used to, but being able to see each othe as well as talk to each other was brilliant! OK, so the sound broke up a bit every now and then, but we talked to each other and saw each other for about an hour just for the cost of the broadband connection.

So we may be, as a family, half a world apart, but it doesn't seem quite so far now.