Today Brooke asks:

Any suggestions as to why my webcam won’t connect to the Web? Yeah, broad question. I have a windows XP system and the webcam works fine, but it won’t connect to the Internet. Yahoo! doesn’t know, the webcam company I bought it from doesn’t know and neither does emachines who I bought my computer from, and, yes, I tried it without the firewall. I’ve checked cookies and everything else, but to no avail. It is installed correctly and I do get a picture to come up? What do I do now? Everyone sends me in circles and I feel like I have wasted money…

Based on what you have described here, it sounds like you used the bundled software that came with the camera and you have successfully tested it, thus seeing a live moving image of yourself via the camera with some sort of software. Now unlike MSN and other chat solutions, Yahoo chat and webcams actually do not have any issues with firewalls at all. Instead of two peers connecting to one another, in Yahoo’s case, you are connecting to their server(s).

I see a few possibilities here. First I would make sure you are running the latest Yahoo messenger software. Then make sure the other person that you are trying to chat with is also using the latest software. It might also be worth double checking that you are following these instructions where applicable.

Do you have an IT-related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the comments may be, drop me a line, and you too can “Just Ask Matt!”