Surfing & Cruising

Show me yours

by Bret Kelly

I’ve covered the subject of Web cams several times and every

time I get a lot of feedback. Many of you have already had cam-
eras and many of you are taking advantage of Web cam technolo-
gy. I’ve only recently started using my camera for chatting pur-
poses. Initially, it was just a time waster but the more I get into it,
the more interesting it’s become. It’s also a fun party favour to
amuse your friends with.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, you need three things to do this:
A computer, a camera and a fast connection. I found Rogers
@Home to be faster than Bell’s Sympatico and I do have both, so I
can testify. The better the camera the better the broadcast — I use a
Sony Hi8 camera with DV streaming output. It’s more expensive
than the tiny cameras that attach to the computer but I can use it
for home movies and digitize clips for my Website.

When you get your camera, experiment with the lighting.
Daytime broadcasts are usually the best as the lighting is warm
and natural. Unfortunately, more people tend to tune in at night,
so you really should play with the settings on your camera and
with the software. I find that front and overhead lighting is the
best, if you light from behind you will be in the shadows and all
those wrinkles show up.

I’ve been utilizing ICUII (www.icuii.com) software. You can
download a free 20-day trial at their site. When you install it, go
into your preference menu and enter in all your bio information.
Once you connect, go into the “ICUII Male/Female Gay/Bisexual
Gateways unrated room” and from there you will find four gay/bi
rooms.

The best way to stand out from the rest is by your nickname and
your description. Many people use an exclamation mark, as it
puts them at the top of the alphabetical list, [people are generally
too lazy to scroll down a long list). Your description should be
inviting yet truthful. Capitals tend to stand out as well.

It’s similar to the chat rooms except you now have video/audio

‘ capability and can still type messages back and forth in real-time.

When you send a message to someone in the room, it takes a still
image of your video stream. The other person then sends back a
message with their image. If you hit it off with them, you can
place a ‘call’ and if it’s accepted you will see their video stream
and they can see yours. If you both have fast connections you can
see a fairly fluid stream, with slower connections the stream
becomes jerky.

The unrated rooms tend be a little on the naughty side and
many of the guys will give you peak. It’s a very ‘you show me
yours, I’ll show you mine’ environment. If you aren’t looking for
that kind of thing, then stick with the ‘rated — NO SEX’ rooms.

There are other software programs that you can use, but I find
ICUII to be the best for this type of chatting. Available for both PC
(US$39.95) and Mac (US$49.95) platforms, it’s very easy to use
and the rooms are busy day or night.