I have been using skype for a very long while, in fact almost two years. One of my friends Sergey recommended it to me before I got my mac. We only got to see each other at orchestra practice, which was only once a week. He lives 30 minutes away, which is too long to have to drive. And phone calls? come on. $$$$$! Anyway, we are both on our computers most of the time. so I decided to get skype to talk to him. He had a webcam, which in the beginning I didn’t. But for free over the internet, we could talk and I could see him. Then I got a webcam. It was a creative webcam, Live! chat, which wasn’t bad, but not great either. Then, I wanted to get a better one and take a step up, so over amazon, I ordered a Logitech QuickCam Chat (I think) so we could now see and hear each other over the internet. All for free! The only problem was, he was nocturnal. I had the normal hours of sleep. So the only times we could see each other was late at night and about 9 when he had just woken up and I was about to go to sleep. But at least we could leave chats for each other with text, another cool feature. Then, my PC got all v!$T@d up (even though it had xp ;-)) and there were numerous reinstalls, grub problems, and things like not loading that stupid dang explorer.exe file. COME ON! I mean, on a mac, you are unable to delete the finder, and it will force startup at login. it’s like that app itself is its own operating system! If the Mac turns on and it shows the logo and the throbber, it is an VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY small chance that it will not boot finder. What happened to me was after I logged in on windows, All I got was a gray screen and a mouse. Reinstallation came next. Then I got my MacBook. SO EASY! I installed skype on it as well, and with the built in microphone and webcam, calling sergey on skype was so easy! I could move my macbook around! with my PC, even though it was a laptop, I always plugged it into a monitor, which was where the webcam was. So it was a pain to try to mobilize with that thing. also, skype JUST WORKS. If you pay for it, you can even use it to call people over landlines and cellphones, just like a normal cell rate! even worldwide calls! and it REALLY cheap. If you want to go for free, it has to be computer to computer over the internet. video is free, chat is free, everything is free if over the internet. You can make worldwide calls over the internet as well for free. Internet=FREEEEEEEE!