Oh, it's Skype Weeken...

AuntySue does it also work with iChat?

Bill - I lost my first registration on the forum, too. So I just went ahead and made a new account there - it was the easiest thing to do. Maybe you could do that?

A few times iChat has been mentioned by students. I guess iChat users are all Macintosh users, right? I happen to have iChat running all the time for family, so it'd be kinda convenient, although it's a little obscure to many. The other day I discovered that Google Talk, which I've just used with a web browser until now, can also be set up to work with iChat. When I set up iChat for Google Talk, I got the icon that says I'm video-capable (and presumably that includes speech-capable) but I suspect that won't work through Google Talk? No Mac users to try that with yet. Does anyone want to experiment with this, say, next weekend? If you have iChat, first go and set up your Google Talk account, and in their Help section you'll see good instructions on configuring iChat. If you don't have iChat, just get a Google Chat account and use the web interface, or one of the other options they list there. I think there's a program you can install on Microsoft systems if you want to do it that way. http://www.google.com/talk BTW, I'm called unixhag on both Skype and Google Talk.

AuntieSue, I really know nothing about computers, but my daughter and I just accept the video invitation and chat, no google chat needed. Maybe someone knows more about it than I do and can advise us and others. I may be in Taiwan this weekend, but I'd love to try it sometime, if not this time around. Thanks for organizing these attempts to practice on line. I think it could be great.

I am confused... how is turning my Skype on going to get anyone to add me? And why can't they add me when I am offline? I have had my Skype username available here since the beginning, yet I havea only had one person add me, and that was Casie and just recently. I have always wondered though why there isn't more ways for us poddies to have live chat with each other. I am mentioned this and begged for this many time. I never even understood what the Skype "I'm not telling" is for anyway. Even I say people can know my skype, but I believe my profile even says "I'm not telling". So, do we have a live ChinesePod chatroom or chat method anywhere out there in www land? Enlighten me. -R

Well, shoot! I have Skype - if I'd known, I could've joined in, too. Would've been fun to hear you all! I haven't used it in ages, though. I'll look through it and see what version I'm on - probably way outdated and needs upgrading. I imagine my username is "Julesong".

Rich and user3881, we don´t have such a chatroom, but over at the chinesepodforum there was a discussion if we could have something like that wich leaded into the idea of having a skypemeetup every month. It is at the weekend nearest to the middle of the month and we all keep skype running the whole weekend, so everyone get´s the chance to contact other cpodmembers no matter wich timezone the other is at. So we can have a little talk or chat and you don´t have to speak chinese. everyone is welcome! ^_^

ähmm...regarding the I´m not telling thing: I had that problem too and Eileen helped me. It turned out that it was because I didn´t turn on the option to display the onlinestatus in the skype-program itself.

Me Newbie. Skype ID = ka_woods, mention Cpod if you request contact. Time Zone EST - Canada Would love to have practice pal. Thanks.

Why not have a ChinesePod chat room? I remember in the late 90's it was really easy to just add a Java chat room to your webpage, etc. You'd think that would be easy... would be cool to just have a page on here to go to and chat with anyone else who goes to it. Did ChinesePod ever consider a chat room? One where we could type Chinese characters, etc.? Well, if Skype is all we got, anyone can add me, richmahn.

nope,not as far as I know sorry! For me it´s Sunday 14:19 by the way and so Yesterday when I turned on skype I only reached Henning...but it was fun anyway ^_´

I should really start participating in these things. I regularly leave Skype/Google Talk/iChat running all the time so would be more than happy to test/help with various windows/mac/im combinations.

Whoah, hang on there. Let me clarify this a bit. Skype Weekend is NOT intended for chatting in Chinese. If you want to practise Chinese together, that's a great idea, you just have to find people on the right time zone and a place to do it. That's NOT Skype Weekend though. Completely different. The purpose of Skype Weekend is for CPod students, of any levels of knowledge or nervousness, to establish contact with each other one to one and enrich their friendships, just as people, that's all. Sure, once you really know each other, you might negotiate some study activities, but there's no pressure to do so. In particular, the idea is to SPEAK ENGLISH, without making anyone feel under pressure to perform as a Mandarin speaker in front of a classmate. Huge numbers of our students are afraid of being pressured to use Mandarin before they get to know someone, but they will happily give this idea a go. In time, as friendships and confidence builds, sure, some of the people will start using some Mandarin, even studying together, if they happen to be at similar levels. So no, this is not a drill class, not a mutual study cramming session, not even a little Mandarin practice. It's not the class itself. it's a shared cool drink under a shady tree in between classes, where you can forget about study for ten minutes and say gidday mate. And you're going to say to me "so what the heyeck do we talk about?" and I'm gonna reply "Oh mate! Haven't you ever had any friends? Have you only ever talked to computers and business partners? Well find someone on the street and try it out with them first." And if you get me chatting on Skype, I'm probably going to tell you all about how I got drenched from head to toe and broke three fingernails trying to get my distributor cap off, and only then discovered that my can of WD40 was empty! And you're gonna listen and pretend you're really interested, coz that's what friends do, right? And then you'll tell me some inane story about how your little darling crawled through the sand pit and left a trail that was a perfect Chinese character, and I'm gonna ghasp and tell you she must be a genius. We might even venture as far as having a mutual bitch session about the small size of the characters in the Exercises tab, or speculating what Aric is up to these days. Get it?? Skype Weekend is just for meeting each other as people. No Mandarin, no pressure to perform. I'll be offline next Skype Weekend (15th March) so you'll have to remember the date yourselves. Have fun!

I still fail to see why we need a weekend to do that... I don't think I could/would do anything different that particular weekend than I normally do any weekend... If I'm at my computer, day or night, and someone tries to chat on MSN or Skype, I'm there... always leave them running anyway. So while I think it is great to have a time to all just chat away and get to know each other, um, why not do it right now?? And how does that particular weekend not have time zone constraints, but to chat with each other to practice Chinese there are.... are we suppose to stay up 72 hours that weekend? :P I doubt that, so I fail to see why bother confining it to a particular weekend (I'm sure there is a reason, I just fail to see it... i chat with friends any time, I just have to be at a computer)

Relax, Rich! If you really hate the idea that much, nobody's going to force it on you. The fact that none of us have used Skype this way for two years but now lots of us do on this special weekend, means that it is doing something. If you plot everyone's weekend in all the different time zones, there ends up only being a short period in which we overlap, so yes, we do need the entire weekend. Also, sometimes I wake up at silly times like 3am and chat to someone while they're cooking dinner. Or vice versa. Or just stay up very late talking to someone. Sleep times aren't that flexible during the week. But you don't have to stay at the computer! Send someone an invitation to be put onto each other's contact list, mentioning cpod of course. (I'm sure I've said this whole thing a thousand times, but I'll continue) You will get these contact-adding notes too, and next time you are walking past your computer you will see it and can click OK if you recognise/like the person. Sure you could analyse and put up charts of times and get a big stick and organise everyone by the colour of their uniforms, and issue all poddies with the complete rollbook whether they want it or not, but our way keeps it very very very very simple. If you want to be in it, you tell us your skype name then look for other people whose skype name you know (mainly from the skype weekend thread on the forum). No, no, you won't get thousands of poddies calling you at 5am every day, but you might get a few trying you on that one weekend of the month when they can feel more welcome to do so than usual. I'm not going to waste my breath explaining any more here, where everything we say will be lost in a week or two, including any skype names of people who'd like to participate. We can continue in the Forum where it started. Or not.

I'm not saying I don't like the idea, I just saying wondering why limit to a weekend. For example, Cassie simply added me to Skype out of the blue, and we started chatting, even though we are in totally different time zones. I didn't have to leave my Skype on all weekend for her to find me and chat with me. Ah, never mind. Hope to chat with some of you some time.

Rich it´s basically not limited to the weekend, it´s just a point where you can be sure there is a certain amount of cpodies who have skype running and are willing to communicate. Once you made contact with a person you see if he/she has skype running or not anyway. With this weekend as a fixed date you can make sure you have the time you need for contacting and talking. Because not everyone has skype running everyday and all night long! I for example don´t have the time for that during the week and I enjoy knowing that on this weekend I can reach many other Cpoddies wich I might not have the chance to talk to if this weekend wouldn´t be.

BTW the forum discussion topic is this one http://forum.chinesepod.com/viewtopic.php?t=2317

I can't participate in the forum, lost password, reset not working, no idea how to resolve the problem. So, my Skype username is: billglover MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk available on request.

My username is "thejulesong"... :)