Ricky Says

I'm heading to Chicago tomorrow morning for another business trip, and really needed a way to stay connected with my family while I'm away.

Video chat sounded promising, and since my wife's laptop has a built-in web cam and I have a high quality web cam that clips onto my work laptop - I figured this might just be the solution.

With our laptops side-by-side, I tried AIM, Skype, and Sightspeed.

I wasn't able to get AIM or Skype working with my laptop's web cam, which is a 2 megapixel Creative Optia. It sits on top of my laptop and plugs into a usb port, and has a high quality auto-focus feature that makes video images look noticably better than standard 1.3 megapixel webcams.

I installed a free copy of Sightspeed on both computers and created accounts for my wife and myself. I wanted to make sure the software worked with our different webcams and computers before getting halfway across the nation.

Sightspeed lets you make video calls over the Internet so you can hear and see the person on the other end of the call.

Creating an account and downloading/installing the software only took about 2 minutes for each computer, and it automatically detected the microphones and web cams on each of our computers.

Starting a video chat was as simple as adding a contact and clicking the Start Video button next to the contact's account name in Sightspeed.

Question: How can I transfer my itunes songs and videos into my Blackberry 8330 curve?

Answer: Blackberry curves let you play mp3 music just like an iPod, and you can transfer songs and videos from iTunes to your Blackberry using an SD Micro memory card and a USB card reader.

Here's the general approach for transferring music files from your computer to a Blackberry:

1. Plug an SD Micro memory card into your computer using a USB card reader.

2. Copy music from your computer onto the SD Micro card.

3. Plug the SD Micro card into your Blackberry (behind the battery) and it will automatically recognized the music files.

Blackberry Curves come with 64 megs of built-in memory, which is barely enough for even a single music album. Fortunately, the Curve also has a memory expansion slot that allows up to 4 gigabytes of SD flash memory - the same amount of storage as an iPod nano.

You can get a 2 GB 3-in-1 microSD/miniSD/SD Kit from Wireless Emporium (shown below), which is enough for about 1,000 songs.

Combine it with a USB card reader (also available for a few bucks at Wireless Emporium), and you'll be able to plug it directly into your computer or laptop and transfer songs or videos to it from iTunes.

The memory expansion slot is located behind the battery, so you'll need to turn off your Blackberry and remove the battery to get to it. The memory expansion slot takes SD Micro flash disks, which are about 1 cm in size.

If a picture can tell a thousand words, then a video can be even more effective on your blog or website.

You can add your favorite YouTube video to your blog by following a few easy steps:

1. Find or Upload the YouTube video

   There are thousands of videos on YouTube that you can show in your blog. You can also upload your own video by creating a free YouTube account and using their simple upload form. They'll even convert your video into the right format for you, and will give you the HTML you need in order to view your video from your blog.

   One of my favorite YouTube videos shows a few guys who built a radio-controlled, jet-powered F14 model plane. They show the whole take off, some Top Gun flying stunts, and a near perfect landing.