Don't know how to start instant messaging with camera

Question

Hello to the Mac Family,
Once again I am stuck while trying to help my son.
He is on Winter break,,His girlfriend is on the West Coast..He is
on the East Coast.
So dad (me) went and bought him a web camera. I figured
they could chat as usaul using AOL instant messanger, but add video
to it. The Camera is a "rocketfish"notebook web cam about $50.00 US.
I tried to phone them and checked their web site. No answer on phone
and web-site not very functional.
The camera came with a CD. In the CD is several apps for PC that look
like controllers for the camera..thing like zoom rotate etc.
The only thing on the CD is a driver for the camera that is for 10.2 or higher.
His computer - G-4 I-Book runninng 10.4
Her computer - Some PC notebook about a year old (Not sure of OS.
Well now for the hard stuff....How do we start using the camera?
I sign on to IM using my slot load 350 running 10.2.
He connects to IM using the I-book. We do a direct connect and that is fine but
we don't know what else to do.
Not sure how to turn on the camera..it is usb powered.
We are stumped....Searching on th web has not helped me at all.
We are stuck.....Please help an old fool trying to keep
romance growing..
Happy New Year.....mGb.......Jim

Answer 1

Hello Ralph,
I am back and still trying.
"In the meantime go to System Preferences > Accounts
GO to the Admin account (hopefully you) and check the Login items
Does this list the Camera Monitor or does the Desk Top item launch the app (Is it already launched in the background ?)"
I went to system prefs and the camera and/or monitor are not listed as Login items.
The camera monitor is an icon that is siiting on the desktop. After I plug in the camera, I double click
the monitor icon and it opens a window. When it works correct the window is about 3x3 inches.
It does have prefs to adjust video etc.
The problem is ..most of the time when I double click the moitor icon, the smaller box appears. It is
about 3" wide and 1/4" tall. It is like just a menu bar with no window showing the actual
picture. The way I get it to work is go to the system profiler and highlight the camera. Then with this highlighted I open the monitor and see the camera video. My son seems to remember reading
that when the camera is plugged in..the monitor window should open automatically. This never
has happened. The only way I get the monitor to show is to double click it' s icon and open the app.
When the camera is showing a picture in the monitor, we open I-Movie to see if it will see the camera.
We make sure we hit the switch you highlited.. It says no camera installed. The only positive is that
it always shows in the system profiler.
If this was on a mac using 9.2 I would say it was an extension conflict and I would create a set of
extensions using the extension manager and try to solve the problem. But this is X and I am pretty
dumb about it.
I just don't know if I should return the camera and try a different brand or what.
I don't give up easy but this is hard....Thanks for you kind efforts.....Jim