Before we start there’s two things I must say.

1. If you are already on Paltalk and au fait with it and your computer this is not for you. This is for my select band of brothers who find this whole computing thing quite hard and confusing and feel they are being ignored.
2. I don’t know all the ins and outs of Paltalk myself but I have managed to get it working and should be able to help you try it with Paltalk express (the web based version) & download and install Paltalk Scene (the software program for your Windows PC).

Okay now we’re alone we can all take it we are on the same level.

Let me see if we generally have the same systems. Well, in fact I don’t, I use a Macintosh computer from Apple and if you do to you will be able to follow us through the Paltalk express part but you will need, as I did to somehow get Windows on your machine to have Paltalk Scene. My way was a virtual PC or you may be able to use Boot Camp to have Windows. As I don’t think any of you will have a Mac I’ll leave this and follow it up later if I was wrong, please just leave a note in the comments.

So do we all have Windows XP? I will guess we do as it is still the most popular and doing this in Windows Vista or Windows 7 is very similar. Again leave a note in the comments if you need to know how to do this in Vista or 7.

Next do we all have a web camera and mic on our machines? No, I hear you say. Okay, first of all Paltalk is designed as the next step up from text chatting like we did on Chatroll etc. It has video from a web camera attached to your computer and sound from the same camera or a microphone attached to your soundcard, you know where you plug in your speakers (speakers usually go into a green socket and a mic into a pink socket). You can also use a text chat at the same time just like any other text chat.

You do not need a microphone to chat, you could just use the text chat, but if you do not have any speakers/headphones/headset (headphones and microphone combined) and so cannot hear the voice chat it would be almost impossible to follow what is going on. You can see videos played on the chat without a camera but to send your video to the chat you would need a camera and a paid for account with Paltalk. I have not seen anyone using video to chat and most users do not have paid for accounts.

There are two pieces of software that are needed to use Paltalk express, your browser and an additional ‘plug-in’ for the browser the Adobe Flash Player version 10. Don’t worry too much about what Flash is, it’s been around a long time, it started out as FutureSplash and introduced animated ‘Splash’ screens, animated clips on the front of web sites and animated banners to the web. Since then it was bought by Macromedia and became a mini web application and animation/video player for browsers and is now owned by the makers of Photoshop, Adobe. YouTube use it to show their videos on the web. By the way, Flash is really the program used to make Flash movies and Flash Player is what you install to view Flash movies. What is important is that your browser has it, Windows comes preinstalled with an older version of Flash for use in Internet Explorer (IE) but it will need updating so that it can use your camera and mic, other browsers have to install it in a different way, which I will show you later.

What I am going to try to do for you is un-install my copy of the Flash Player and Paltalk and then using my browser look at Paltlak express, installing the Flash Player a long the way. Then I will install Paltalk Scene the Windows program and show you some basic settings and what it looks like. I will talk you through it, show you screen grabs (pictures of my screen) and record some videos of my screen which I hope to put on YouTube and show below.

So here goes…

First I will start Windows XP and the Safari browser, it’s my choice because it is very fast and is the same browser that is on my Mac. Google’s Chrome browser is built on the same foundation (WebKit) as is also very good. Many users like Firefox, it has more ‘plugin’ that can extend its use and is also very good, Opera, Konqueror and others are available but not so good or at least not so popular.

Nearly forgot, so that you can see the videos better please click the text at the bottom of the video box that says Pop-Up it will then play the videos much larger.

Changed my mind here are the full movies from YouTube.

Well, what a prefect example of things don’t always work well. While recording the video of installing Flash, for some unknown reason the site sent me to download Shockwave player, which again is from Adobe, and okay to download but does not help the site load. It just traps you in a circle of download, install, get told to download again when the site should send you to get Flash player. I did also try it in IE 8 and got the same answer. Luckily most of you will already have one version of the Flash player and should only get the request to update the player and is done in the same way as the last part of the video.

In fact I had a look at the code and the site is checking for Flash player 10 and then as I though sending you to download the Shockwave player and not Flash player so I doubt that you do indeed need the Shockwave player the designer just got it wrong. This is what I mean by somethings are out of our hands.
You will  get a pop up from the Flash player the first time you visit the site and have the correct Flash player asking to use your camera and/or your microphone you will need to allow this connect between your equipment and Flash for the site to input sound and/or video, again if you do not have a mic or camera you will not need to allow this it does not effect the out put of sound. You can change these details after by right clicking in the screen and choosing settings. Please follow the settings in the video.

Okay on with the show, we need an account to sign in. to show you that I’m going to change to my Mac as the login doesn’t seem to work in my virtual PC.

From the front screen you need to click join and enter your new account details like Username, a password and email address, plus a security question in case you forget your password. Your account can be used on both the Paltalk express site and in the Paltalk Scene software. You will get an email asking you to confirm you email address to open your account. Just click the link to reply and confirm your email address.

Okay so that is how to get into the Home of the Green Arrow room on the Paltalk express site.

Now how to install the Paltalk Scene software.

As you will see in the video, first go to the Paltalk web site www.paltalk.com then click on the download link and again on the second download link on the new page. Save the download file to your computer. Next close your browser and locate the downloaded file. Double (or single click if you have set that up) on the file, in my case it is named pal_install_r17716. Run through the questions on the install screen, as in accept the licence agreement, choose Standard or Custom install if you choose custom tell the program if all users can use it or just you (that’s you the logged in person and all would be if you have other user accounts for someone else to use on your computer say your children or your husband/wife) , choose if Paltalk should start when you or anyone logs on to the Internet or only when you choose Paltalk, if you intend to use this as your Instant Messaging service like MSM (Microsoft Messinger) or AIM (AOL (America Online) Messinger) then you may wish that it starts up every time you log on. If you do not wish to do that choose only when you start, that way you can Start Paltalk from the shortcut on the desktop or the Programs Menu from the Windows Start button.

Next we will enter the Home of the Green Arrow room inside the Paltalk Scene program.

One thing I didn’t show in the video is how to find the Home of the Green Arrow room if it is not in your favorites. So to find the room click on the ALL ROOMS button on the right of the Scene panel and the room panel will open on the left again look through the lists for Social Issues and Politics then Human Rights and look for Home of the Green Arrow in the list on the right side of that panel as in the image.

There are the other text buttons around the program, like all other programs, File, Edit etc. but I’m not sure you really need to know about them or you can work out what they do for yourself or you could of course ask in the room once you have got there. Also you have got an account page which may be good to look at and for you to set up. I may come back to that if you need help, again you can ask in the room. Please leave a note in the comments if you do want help with your account page. You will also have notice there are two radio buttons (round dots you can click) to say if you want to see adult content rooms in the top right of the rooms panel remember some rooms and videos are for adults with broad minds only.

Bertie Bert will have even more details of how the system works and I\'m sure he will help anyone find their way around just ask him to guide you once your in the room.

Here ends the lesson for today.